Oh deer.........

I was able to spend a few hours in the shop after work today so I got a few things done. It was a pretty productive day. First thing up sanding the tail block patch I made last time so it was flush and radiused to the sides. Once that was done I went ahead and glued in the kerfing on the back. I am using two different kerfing woods. The back is mahogany and the top is spruce. I did this because I wanted the darker colored kerfing in the back, but I wanted the top kerfing to be of the same species as the top wood. The bracing will match with mahogany braces for the back, and Adirondack spruce for the top. Once the kerfing was all glued and clamped I decided to work on the neck. First I needed to cut the truss rod channel in the neck blank. I carefully measured the center, got my 1/4" router bit and cut the rod. It was pretty non-eventful. Again, I love having a router table! It makes a lot of these jobs so much easier. I then cut the three pieces of cedar for the tail block and glued that all together. What a pain in the neck that was! Those three pieces all wanted to slip and slide all over the place while I was clamping them up. I guess if I was patient, I would glue them up one piece at a time. I figured since I was gluing stuff and I had clamps left over, I would go ahead and glue the peghead veneer. After that was all glued and clamped (weighing about as much as my youngest daughter!) I put it aside to dry.

I then decided to do something different. I have been kicking the idea around of making a logo to put on all of my guitars. I am an avid hunter and have great respect and admiration for the whitetail deer that we are blessed to have all over around here. I just love watching them and studying them. It is funny, but I spent a lot of hours in the woods during the months of Nov and Dec hunting the whitetail, but more often than not, I end up just watching them. It is a fairly rare event that I actually take one. Just as an example, this season I probably watched close to 150 deer, all within shooting range, and never even raised my gun. I have always considered it a successful hunt when I have deer that I could have harvested, but I let them walk away. I can't think of anything more exciting than to have a whitetail deer walk directly under my stand, so close that I could literally reach out and touch them, and have them never even know that I am there. That is how I hunt, with respect and admiration.

Anyways, off of that rabbit trail. I spent some time a couple of evenings ago drawing up a silhouette of a buck that I could possibly use as a logo. I took some of my gold pearl and cut one out small enough to put on one side of the bridge. I am happy with it. It took about an hour to cut out and I went through several blades. Hey, if anyone has a better way to get those fine little blades into the saw without breaking them I am all ears! I broke 4 blades just trying to tighten the set screw that holds them in. Now I have to decide if I want to put it in the bridge, or save it for the OOO headstock. I am not very confident in my routing skills to try and cut this in perfectly so I would probably do an over sized cut and fill it in with black epoxy. I have a spare rosewood bridge so I might just give it a shot to see how it looks.

Here is the tail block with the little ship I added to the top. I am not sure why I am cutting these too short, but it has happened twice to me now.

The back kerfing all glued up. Look at all those clothespins!

The neck blank with the center line marked for the truss rod. The line of the edge is approx. halfway from the nut to the first fret. That is where I ended the slot.

The truss rod fits perfectly. Now I just hope that LMI is right that the shorter rod is the same dimensions as the long rod!

The three tail block pieces ready for glue up.

After a lot of slipping and sliding I finally got all the pieces lined up and clamped. No, I didn't nail it all together to hold them, but the thought did cross my mind! lol

Hey, I had some clamps left so why not use them! The neck with about 30 pounds of clamps on it.

Here is the deer head I cut out. All one piece with no breaks! My original design had the head with the center cut out making an outline. I am still debating on doing that before I put it in.