Everyone smiles at you…

…as you drift by the flowers that grow so incredibly high.  Well, that might be stretching it a bit…

Day 6:

A nursery on the way to Mike’s that makes me think of Mr. Miyagi every time I passed it.  Well, that and I figured my wife would have loved the place…

We started out by drilling holes for the side dots with the pin vise. Mike had some brass rod that I thought would look great as position markers. In the lighting in his shop they looked like they might be subtle, but in actual use I’ve found them to be perfect. Dots were drilled at frets 3, 5, 7, 10, 12 and 14. I see no point in having fret markers on the fretboard itself. Why detract from a beautiful piece of wood with a marker you shouldn’t be using while you’re playing anyway? But I digress…

The rod end is dipped in a little super glue then stuffed in the hole and nipped off with the end nippers. Once they’re all in place, we filed them down flush with the edge of the fretboard. At first the thought of digging up the edge of the fretboard while filing down the brass scared the crap outta me, but in reality the brass gets filed down while the wood goes untouched as long as you hold the file level.

Fretting time! I didn’t actually think to ask Mike which way he prefers to fret necks, but he has a fret hammer (which based on the condition of the plastic head I will assume he prefers) and a fret press caul in a drill press. I tried both methods and I was infintely more comfortable with the hammer than the caul. The caul seemd more efficient, but I was worried about crushing the backside of the neck. (Turns out I did dent the neck slightly and had to sand it out later.) Although slower, I felt I had more control with the hammer.

Fretting was started at the 14th fret (where the the neck shaft ends) then worked up towards the first fret. This way the neck shaft together with the fretboard takes the blow of the hammer and you don’t need to worry so much about snapping the end of the fretboard off with a poorly aimed blow. Mike has a caul that the tenon of the neck slips into and supports the fretboard while you fret the high frets. It’s not a solid block like the 1st-14th frets so it’s a little wonky striking it with the hammer, but on the upside, the fretboard can flex a bit so it actually arcs down slightly as the frets get pressed into the slots making it easier for the frets to go in.

Once the frets are in, the ends are clipped down close to the body, and then filed flush with the fretboard edge. Using a mill file embedded into a piece of wood at a 35 degree angle the frets are beveled in towards the centerline of the neck. After that is the fret dress and leveling.

Next up was glue up of the headstock veneer. I chose tulipwood for this as I thought it nicely highlighted both the bloodwood and the fir. After the glue dried, it was trimmed to shape on the belt sander. As an aside, I never realised how handy a huge-ass belt sander could be. I am sold!

The nut was next. We chose corian for the nut and saddle, mainly cause in my opinion bone is a pain in the ass to work with. For me it’s the smell. I am not a fan of the smell of burning flesh and anyone who has worked with bone will know of what I am talking about. The nut is 1/8″ thick and placed at the end of the fretboard and it’s location marked with a razor knife. Still holding it in place, a razor saw is used to cut through the headstock veneer. The veneer is chipped away with a small (and I mean very small) chisel and then filed flush with a nut file.

The top of the nut should be 0.025″ above the top of the first fret. As it turns out, Mike has a scraper that is 0.025″ thick, so that is laid across the frets and used to mark the nut top. The nut is then trimmed to size on the belt sander. Did I not say it was a handy tool? After that, the nut is glued and clamped. While the glue is drying, the tuner holes are marked, punched and drilled.

The neck is then dry fit and clamped to make sure there are no problems before glue up is started. Once everything is ready to go, it’s unclamped and the neck end, tenon and exposed under surface of the fretboard are covered with glue. The big trick is getting the glue spread and the neck fitted before the tenon starts to swell with glue making it difficult if not impossible to get the neck to fit on correctly. After that, clamp it up and let ‘er dry!

While the glue dried it was time to pick a bridge. I prefer a tie bridge, Mike generally likes the Martin-style bridge. Either way, he has a supply of various styles in different woods to choose from. I didn’t ask, but the ebony bridge stock he had looked like Gaboon to me which was too black and did not go well with the Macassar ebony fretboard. In the end I picked Rosewood, as it complemented the lighter browns in the fretboard very well. Rough shaping was done on the bandsaw, then final shaping was done with sandpaper. The tie holes were drilled using an end mill or small routing bit.

The bridge was then lined up in its proper location, and marked with 2 pieces of laquer tape stacked on each other to create a lip. The perimeter of the bridge was then masked off. Finally, the bridge was removed and a piece of laquer tape was placed in the bridge location and trimmed to fit with a razor knife. After that, the excess tape was removed. Next a piece of 120 sandpaper was laid over the bridge position and the bridge sanded side to side to match the radius of the soundboard.

Two small holes were drilled in but not through the bottom of the bridge and pins were installed to act as guides for later bridge alignment. The bridge was again lined up over the tape and the pins pushed into the wood to mark their location. The pin vise was then used to drill pilot holes for the pins and the bridge placement was checked for accuracy.