flatfive's Former 2014 Challenge Build - La Cabin Absentia

Had to re-rout the neck pocket after a day of spraying
lacquer!

Correctly-sized neck pocket template:





Almost forgot that there is a 1.3 degree angle to the pocket!





Took it real slow. Looks okay from here:



(but note that the neck will now overhang the side of the
pocket a little.)

Well, one chip in the binding, but somehow I found it on
the ground right away. (So much for Murphy's Law )



Glued the chip in with thin super glue; also used a bit of
ebony dust. Then sanded with 320, 400, 600 grit paper:



After wiping on shellac:



After softening the edges around the pocket, all is more-or-less
well:



Guess that's a bullet dodge. But I'll still need to carefully
shape the neck to minimize where it would overhang the
edge of the neck pocket.

 

Hey Steve. Nice to see you here -- and I like that quote.

I guess there are millions of ways to screw up and only one
way to get it right.

Managed to rout the truss rod slot. Decided on heel adjust
because it's easy and gives a more traditional tele look. Also,
I've found that the necks built with these double-action rods
are super-stable and very rarely need adjustment.

Anyway, normally I'd rout the slot with a fence while the
neck blank was square. This time I had to cut the neck
to width first, so I can't use a fence directly. But -- you can
always use a fence by mounting the piece to a piece that is square.



That's a piece of 1/2" MDF attached to the neck.

There are pencil lines on the router table and on the neck
blank so I can see where to stop. The distance between
the lines is the cutting width of the router bit.





Hope I can find the maple jig I use to drill the access
hole!

 

Finished spraying!



I'll be able to wet sand and buff on Friday night.

Started on test routs for the fretboard inlays. Here's
the impromptu jig:



What you're seeing is a my cheapo router table with
a strip of wood riding in a channel on the top, with the
orange-ish poplar piece glued to the strip. By holding
the fretboard against the poplar piece I can make routs
that are square. The pine scrap clamped to the board
is a stop that controls the length of the routed channel.

The white stuff glued to the fretboard allows the rout
to be made roughly parallel to the top surface of the
fretboard.



That looks good. Now to figure out how to get the
length of each rout just right.

I forgot to mention: MOP inlays, except for the 12th fret, which
will be abalone.

 

Last time I drilled tuner holes they weren't exactly
straight. This time they will be straight!

I made a template of maple to be sure, then drilled:



Used so much double-sided tape I worried that the
scarf joint would break before the template came off.

 

Thanks for the encouragement, people.

At this stage in last year's challenge, the phrase
"balls to the walls" kept surfacing in my brain. This
time I keep hearing "critical path".

Anyway, decided to use a different jig to route the
neck inlay cavities. Made me nervous not being able
to see how long the routs were going towards the center
of the neck.



The center of the jig is aligned with the center of the workbench.
That way I can use my eyes to help center the routs between
fret slots.



With the real fretboard:



The length of all routs should be the same on the final,
tapered fretboard, but the fretboard has square sides now,
complicating things a little.

No obvious mistakes, thankfully. Even got the routs on the
correct side of the neck. Also, most routs are reasonably
centered.



Each piece of MOP will serve as both a top and side marker.

 

Thanks, friends.

Jigsawed and routed the headstock:



To shape the inlay for the fingerboard I made a little gizmo:



The block on the left screws into the block on the right,
clamping a piece of mother of pearl on the edge.

On the right block you can see the dark spacer
strip, a small piece of MOP, and a plastic card.

You use the gizmo like this. First put a piece of
MOP on the bottom block and screw on the top block...



then saw a strip slightly larger than needed using the
block as a guide.



The sawed piece should have a very straight edge. Sand
if necessary to make it straight, then put the straight edge
along the card, clamp with the screws, and rout with a
template bit.

One of the block edges is perfectly straight and juts out very
slightly from the other -- you ride the bearing of the bit along it.



Unscrew and you've got a piece of MOP that is just the right
shape for the inlay channels on the fingerboard.

The gizmo wasn't essential but if nothing else it was handy
for clamping and sawing.

Need to make one or two more MOP strips and an abalone strip.



BTW, that dark spacer strip helps to keep the clamping pressure
flat on the veneer. I used leftover veneer binding strips and
glued them on Black/White/Black for fun.