Oops, I did it again.........

DAY 50 (The last day marker!)

I spent a couple of hours in the shop working on the OOO. First thing was to clean up the neck block that I glued up yesterday and then lay out the mortise for the neck tenon. After measuring, re-measuring, and re-measuring again I set up my router table with a 3/4" straight cutting bit and set my fence 25mm from the bit edge. I marked the stop mark on the fence so I knew when to stop the cut and ran the block through. Since the bit was about 2mm too narrow I flipped the block and ran it through so the mortise was dead center on the block. It worked nicely. then I sanded the radius on the mortise side to match the top radius, and clipped the corners to ease the edges of the block inside the guitar. I glued it up and set the sides, form, blocks and clamps in my warm closet for the glue to set.

Then I turned to the neck. I unclamped and cleaned up the neck scarf joint to see how it turned out. It looks great! The seam is almost invisible and if it weren't for the change in grain direction it would be invisible. I then needed to thin the peghead so the total thickness including the veneers would be 3/4" thick. This ment that I had to remove just shy of 1/4" from the top of the peghead. I ran it through my tablesaw and it cut it cleanly and evenly. I then measured the total length and cut the excess off of the other end of the neck blank for a 12 fret length. I was going to route out the truss rod channel but I soon discovered that I made a second mistake with my initial list of parts. I made a lot of changes to the list, but failed to remember that since I was building a 12 fret instead of a 14 fret neck, I needed to change the truss rod to a shorter one. So, this is where I stopped. I was going to go ahead and route the channel but I wanted to make sure that the shorter rod had the same dimensions as the longer rod before cutting the slot. I looked it up on LMI's site and it does so I will go ahead and route it next chance I get.

First up, here is the piece of bloodwood binding I bent with ease yesterday. I put the other pieces on the bender to help them hold their shape until I am ready to use them.

The neck block after I routed the mortise for the neck tenon.

The neck block glued and clamped in place. Yeah I know, that's a lot of clamps. I just want to make sure it is tight ya know!

Here is the scarf joint after a little cleanup. Not bad.

The scarf joint after thinning the peghead. The break angle at the top of the neck is at a perfect 90 degree angle from the side. No touch up needed!

I marked the 12th fret location and then cut the excess off.

Oops, a 14 fret truss rod and a 12 fret neck. Something doesn't add up! Add that to the list for my next order. There is always a next order, they never end.