Stupid Stupid Stupid

David said: “I know I would be checking every possible thing that could cause it to move before I started changing the neck joint that amount.”

Note to self – When someone offers advice, TAKE IT

I headed down to the shed tonight and got started on fixing that neck set. I checked the side to side a thousand times before I started, I went ever so slow. Hours of sanding, checking, sanding, checking.

THEN the penny dropped – The centre line !

Before I applied the finish, I had a centre line down the fret board, I covered it during the finishing stage and plotted out a new one when I removed the tape covering the fret board surface. My neck set WAS perfect(ish), the new centre line was wrong.

So I was left with a new out of shape neck set that had to go back the other way. My fault, my mistake. A very stupid mistake which has left my neck joint looking a lot less visually pleasing than it was three days ago.

I’ll have to get the camera out again soon. I have been a bit tardy of late.

ARRRRRR - Guitar Making

Today I headed back down to the shed and started fixing to finish this guitar. I put the neck on and roughly located the bridge. My side-to-side is miles (1 cm+) out. How is that possible? I have removed the finish (tiny amount) from the neck. How can this difference be caused by the smallest layer of finish. Frustration is the name of the day in my house. I started on a new neck set but I know that I will never get that good a join again - I got lucky last time, I know that.

Typical

I still twiddling my thumbs for three weeks and when I the day comes where I could move forward, there are so many more things more important going on, keeping me out of the workshop.

A circle peg for a round hole

I found this interesting. Today I surfed over my favourite luthiers site, Dan Dubowski and I noticed this picture.... which I must of looked at a thousand times.

To me it looks like Dan routes his inlay BEFORE he glues on the covering headplate. I got to thinking that using this method, if one made a few mistakes you could fill them in with expoxy or similar and make a second/smaller cut, and get a really tight fit. Then when the headplate got glued on over the top, as long as you had a template to know where to cut/drill/route, you could 'edge' you way up to the cut underneath and bingo - you'll end up with a neat and near perfect inlay slot.

In other news I received my hard guitar case from Marquez Music today. I won it on an Ebay auction and delivered to my door with insurance it cost AU$74.00 in total. It is a great product, really sturdy with clasps, hinges and stoppers etc that appear to be really good quality. The 41 inch case holds my dreadnought snugly and the OOO well but with a small gap all around. Sure, I won't be travelling the world with it, throwing it on to a different aircraft each night but, it'll more than service my needs until an international record label pick me up.