SCORE!!!!!!

So, do you remember me saying that I am kind of a cheapskate and am always on the lookout for everyday things that can be used to do the same thing that expensive specialty tools do? Today I scored! I was in my local Radio Shack store and found something that looked suspiciously like the fret tang nipper that Stewmac sells. It is a 'nibbler'. Basically it is a tool made to nibble away pieces of metal so you can cut out things like fan holes in computer cases. Best thing is, this thing was on clearance for $3.99 For that price I couldn't go wrong even if it didn't work. I took it home and tried it out. It cut but bent the fret. So, I took a look at what was happening and realized that the base needed a small notch that would allow the edge of the fret sit lower than the base. That would hold the barbed edge to sit flat for the cut. I hit it with a grinding wheel in my dremel. I tried to cut a fret again. BINGO! This thing works great. It makes a very clean cut and removed just enough of the tang to go over a bound edge fingerboard. So, here is what we have..... Stewmac fret nipper $42.53 or the Radio Shack special $3.99 This one is a no brainer!

After I was finished with my little victory dance in the shop, I went to work on the OOO. First I took all the clamps off the neck and checked the glue joints. The peghead looks great and the neck looks pretty good too. Unfortunately it slid a little bit but it wasn't enough to worry about. Since most of it gets cut off anyways it really didn't need to be perfect. I cleaned up the overhang veneer on the peghead and then straightened up the tail block as much as possible with my table saw and chop saw. Somehow around this time I got sidetracked. I decided that I needed to do the top kerfing on the body so I pulled that out, pulled off all the clothespins and glued/clamped the kerfing.

Once that was done I went back to the neck. I wanted to cut the tenon on the end of the tail block. After a lot of measuring, marking, and head scratching I had it all figured out. I used my tenoning jig on my table saw to make the cheek cuts, and the saw with a miter gauge for the cross cuts. It turned out pretty nice but once I lined it up against the neck block mortise, I realized that I had cut the tenon just a hair too narrow. It would work, but it isn't a nice tight fit. I thought about just using shims like I did with the Dreadnought dovetail neck, but instead I decided to glue a thin piece of cedar to each side of the tenon. Once that is dry, I will re cut the two sides equally. All I needed would have been a shim about 1mm wide. I didn't want to do that though as it adds more difficulties to making the neck angle correct. One thing I need to figure out is how to get the cut angle to 89 degrees. Right now everything is 90 degrees, and I can make it work as the Stewmac guitars come with 90 degree necks. The LMI however comes with an 89 degree neck and that made the neck angle fit a lot easier. I think I will just carve the neck and then set it like I did with the Stewmac. It takes a little chisel work to get it correct but until I can make a jig to hold everything to an 89 degree angle for my table saw, I will have to deal with the extra degree.

I debated on whether to cut the tenon first or wait until I had the neck carved but I decided that it would be difficult to cut the tenon after shaping as there would be no straight edges to clamp in jigs, or to measure from. I looked at several examples of people carving bolt on necks and I realized that a lot of builders don't even make mortise and tenon joints when bolting them on. After reading Cumpiano's instructions on how he makes necks, I decided to follow his example except instead of using pegs, I will use bolts.

This is the Radio Shack nibbler. If you want one, check their website. They are on closeout so they are in store only and not every store has them. Search for "nibbler" then click on the "may be available near you" to see if your stores have them in stock. They are the Kronus Nibbling Tool model #64-2960

Here you can see the notch for the fret top to sit in.

From the top with a piece of fret wire in ready for the cut.

Here is a cut tang. Nice clean cut.

Here you can see the stack of blocks slid to one side a bit. No big deal as the bulk of the wood gets carved away anyhow.

Here it is after cleaning the edge and chopping the end to the total length plus the length of the tenon.

The tenon all marked up. For some reason the picture makes the tenon look crooked. It is straight.

The neck in my tenoning jig to make the two cheek cuts.

Here is the tenon after all the cutting.