Now I'm starting to have fun, and even surprising myself a little here and there.
My shop day started after playing at church this morning (which was great to finally use my newly built Batcaster tele I finished a few weeks ago). I unclamped the neck, and it looked pretty messy. I wasn't really sure how this was gonna turn out...
Then back to the router planing jig. Stuck the neck down with double stick tape, and fired up the engine.
A couple minutes and a few passes later, I had it planed down nice and smooth on both sides. Ran some 220 over it with the sanding block, and quite honestly, I was blown away how well it turned out for my first laminated neck.
I gotta say, that's a sexy-looking neck blank. It's sitting at about .97" thick, exactly what I was shooting for. Now I've got plenty of room to play with.
Next, I turned my focus to the Koa top. I pulled it out of the jig and used my sanding block to get the excess glue off. This is one of the times that I really wish I had a thickness sander. Maybe if I'm good for my bday...
I placed my template on the top and drew in my shape.
A quick zip around the bandsaw gave me a nice preview of what's to come... I can't wait to get some oil on this to see what's hiding in that grain.
I prepped my mahogany blank by taping off the wiring channels so that I don't drip too much glue down there.
And used a fake credit card to spread the glue around, removed the tape, and spread a little closer to the channels.
Now I really don't like these clamps, but they're all I have right now so I used ever last one I've got. I felt felt pretty good about the pressure I was getting by the little bit of glue squeeze around the edges, but I wanted to make sure that I got the middle squeezed down nice and tight as well.
So, I looked around the garage for something heavy. Nothing that I had that was small enough to fit in between the clamps was heavy enough to offer any real pressure... and then it dawned on me.
On the weekends I DJ weddings, and one of my larger stands in the garage caught my eye. If I extended the light stand just far enough I could squeeze it between the top and the garage rafter which would give a very nice amount of downward pressure in the middle, like an oversized go-bar. I guess necessity truly is the mother of redneck invention.
I don't know whether to be proud or embarrassed, but hey, it worked!
To finish my day, I took a few measurements on my neck blank. Tomorrow I'll cut my scarf joint and hopefully get that glued up. The neck is going to take me the most time on this build...
Good night!
