Carving Necks

I spent the last day or two carving the necks for the 3 L-0 style guitars, all came out pretty good, still need final sanding but I can get started on finishing next week.

Always fun carving necks one of the more enjoyable parts of building a guitar.

Off to the La Conner Guitar festival this weekend.

Body for this one is off at the finishers, back in a couple of weeks I hope...

Necks & Fretboards

The necks are now fitted to the bodies and the fretboards are complete and ready to be glued on the necks.. Once the fretboards and peghead overlays are glued up I can get on with carving the necks.

L-0 Guitars

Moving on to working on the necks for a bit, don't feel like doing a bunch of sanding on the boddies right now. Matching necks to bodies.

Matching Necks to Bodies

Oak, walnut & koa

Cutting the Pocket for the Neck Extension

Since then Cello Guitar will have a removable neck the fingerboard extension is not glued to the body so an extension of the neck is needed and that requires a pocket in the body.

Cut with a router and guide bushing using a template.

Template and pocket

With the extension inserted

Closed Up and Necks

Well things are going well both bodies are closed up and necks are well underway.

Both bodies and  progress on the necks.
Harp in the background waiting on some attention

Neck & Headstock Work

So I'm actually making progress on the crossover guitar..

The neck to body attachment is mostly done and the tuner slots are routed into the headstock.

This will be a completely removable neck so it has what can best be described in wood working terms as a floating tenon which is glued into a mortise in the neck and floats in a mortise in the body similar to a regular bolt on mortise & tenon neck. The reason for the floating tenon glued into the neck is to that propell nuts can be used and there is no possibility they will tear-out of neck end grain.

There will also eventually be a fingerboad support routed into the body.

Tenon with Propell Nuts

Neck Mortise

Glued in Place

Ready to Route the Slots

Done

Came out good!

Test fitting tuners

Neck #2 Carved

The neck for the second Parlour Guitar is carved.. Time to install some frets..

One Neck Down One to Go

One of my favourite parts of building a guitar is carving the neck. It was pretty intimidating for the first time but really not that hard to get the hang of. I get a lot of satisfaction removing everything that does not look like a neck and seeing what comes out..

I really don't have a standard neck shape, I guess I really should but I like just seeing where it goes. This one on the Pacific parlour is what you might call a pointed D shape not really a V shape like some old Parlours but a bit of a pointy D if that makes any sense.

Anyway one more to go, then the bing sanding job and on to finishing...

Bridge is just sitting there it is the very last thing to get attached

Looking Like Guitars

Ok the fingerboards are glued on and the necks cut to rough shape. I still need to remove the necks from the bodies and carve them but right now they are on so I can confirm the bridge height and get started on making the bridges.

Making Some Progress

I'm making progress with the archtop, I did get the dovetail cut, thanks for the help Meredith. and now the neck is carved and just need final sanding a fitting.

One of my favourite parts of guitar building is carving the neck, always nice to as they say, see everything that does not look like a neck disappear.


Next I have to sort out a tailpiece, maybe a cast one or I might make an ebony one the jury is still out. I also have to make a bridge.

Neck roughed out with the fingerboard extension

The carved neck, just needs some more sanding

Profile view :-)

Archtop and Other Stuff

If you read this regularly you might remember I started and archtop build with the help of a Vancouver Island luthier Joe Egan but getting back to it with him has proved challenging so local luthier Meredith Coloma (http://www.meredithcoloma.com/) agreed to give me a hand with the last real tricky part, cutting the dovetail neck joint. Hopefully I can get that done this weekend.

Since I had to get the neck for the archtop in shape for this I also glued up the necks for the two parlour guitars I'm currently working on.

So i have a fully roughed out 3 piece Spanish Cedar & Walnut neck for the archtop and a 3 piece Spanish Cedar & Walnut neck for one parlour and a 5 piece Narra, Walnut & Maple neck for the Pacific Parlour. In case you're wondering Narra is also called New Guinea Rosewood (Pterocarpus indicus) so it meets the Pacific criterial. Interestingly Narra is the tree that produced the Amboyna Burl, although the regular wood looks nothing like the burl..

I also finished a few more head plates that I will use on the regular parlour guitar and the archtop.

Tenor Archtop neck with it's headplate

Necks for the two parlours...

Getting Ready to Close Things Up!

I'm getting ready to close up the archtop tenor.. the sides have kerfing installed and some side braces. They have also been sanded flat on the top & bottom to receive the top & bottom..

I've also done some work on  the neck so it is all glued together..

Sides (or rims as some say) all ready

Test fitting, some excess to trim 

3 piece neck glued up

Arm Bevel & Neck

So this thing is looking more and more like a Tenor Guitar.. I  finished the arm bevel. The base is a piece of Bass Wood and it is topped with flamed maple, all the binding miters were fun to do (oh and yes the bindings are done..)..

Rough carving the base for the bevel

Gluing it all together, a bit fun to unravel

The result

Next it was time to carve the neck, I always like doing this, it's actually kind of relaxing..

Everything that was not a neck

Front view

Side view

Back view

Making Good Progress

I've done a fair bit of work over the last week. The neck has a peghead veneer, and the peghead is routed to shape it also has a "W" inlay. The neck is cut down to rough size. The fretboard is cut, slotted, & the dots are inlaid and it is glued on the neck. The whole thing is starting to look like a guitar..

I also routed the binding channels into the body and bent the binding so I can get started on them. It is going to be a bit tricky mitering all the joints around the arm bevel but I think I have it figured out.

Cutting the peghead to shape with a drill press router

Fretboard bound & ready for dots

All bolted together

Peghead inlay