I'm going to the UK.

Be back on the 8th of October...

Fretting the guitar.

I fretted the guitar using my drill press. It withstood the pressure of the fretting force nicely. I have a 1950's Delta drill press and it is solid steel. I read where some drill presses need a 2x4 to support the downward force. I used hard wire on the first seven frets and soft, wider wire for the rest. Remember, it is what was left over.

I like this way of fretting. It caused less shock to the neck, and made it very easy. I applied a dab of glue to the fret tang tip. Just a smidgen.

Neck shaping.

I was just about to fret the guitar, when I realized that it would be better to have the neck rest onto the neck support I got for fretting. I am planning on using the drill press to fret this guitar so it needs some backing when pressing them in. I have a half-round neck support that the shaped neck sits in. The neck must be shaped to use it. I used a rounded spokeshave, a chisel, a rat-tail file and a smooth file to shape the neck. In total, it took about 30 minutes to get a rough shape.

Headstock binding.

I decide to bind the headstock only at the side edges. It will accentuate the unusual shape, I think. Used the hairdryer to soften up the binding to conform to the curves. I experimented with two types of binding glue. The Stew-Mac #14 glue and the LMI white binding glue. I glued them up last night and this morning both held on well. I chose the LMI as it held just a tad better. Very close to call. One problem with the LMI glue, it is not meant for long-term storage. Once you open it, it will start to evaporate. On a previous bottle, I went in to my garage and found it had shrunk quite a bit in the bottle. The LMI glue dries real fast, so you may want to hold it on with one hand, while taping with the free hand. Keep tape strips handy. Lots of them. The LMI glue does seems to conform to the contour of the headstock much better, as it seems to melt/soften it some.

Turqouise position markers.

I used MOP dots, but a few were too low once I started to sand them. I noticed that some holes were a tad off of center. The brad point bit, didn't work too well. The brad point bit can wonder if the tip starts to drill on a grain line. On the very first guitar I made, I used a 1/4" router bit in a small drill press to drill the holes. Those came out perfect. Once I removed the MOP dots, I used the router bit technique again and installed fake turquoise dots. That's the way to make the holes from now on. The router bit goes in regardless of grain. They weren't perfectly round, so I had to do a little sanding first. They were just right. Draw a white line and eyeball the bit as it makes the hole.

Headstock shape.

Here's how I got the headstock to proper thickness once I got close enough with the chisel.

Headstock and neck shaping.

I used a jig saw to cut the excess from the neck. Careful, because the blade tends to bend at times. The face I was cutting looked straight, but the back side cut was too close to the line. I scraped and sanded the sides of the neck to get it ready to route the tenon slot. I need to fret it first. I used a chisel to take the headstock down to size. I was going to use the Saf-T-Planer I have, but opted for the chisel, scraper and sand method. I'm glad I did. I had more control over what I was doing and I felt safer doing it. Lot's of work today.