Working on a neck takes a lot of effort.

It seems to me that you have to be pretty darn lucky to get a good neck. So far I am 3 for 3 on neck shaping, I think it’s time to buy a lotto ticket…

I like the way the fretboard meets the soundhole. Although it makes it a pain to bolt on the neck.

More pictures soon, I promise. I have to engineer my own binding rig now…. yuk.

Woof, I did a TON of work this weekend. I am proud to say that I competed the neck. I took a bunch of pictures, so I am going to split this into two posts: one for fretboard, one for neck carving.

I am nervous about my fret slots, they seem a little screwed. I guess I will find out soon enough. Everything else I am fairly happy with.

yikes, that was a lot of pictures….

So I started attacking the neck. I can’t figure out if I really like doing it, or I really loathe doing it. Either way, it needs to get done. The only change here is going to be the heel profile. I used a standard steel string heel last time, but this time I’m going to do something a little more robust. Hopefully it wont be as tricky to carve.

To be honest, I’m not 100% sold on the headstock design either, it looks kind of…. thin. I dont know, i think I will have version 3 coming up shortly.

Pics.

This will be my last Dreadnought guitar (for awhile). I bought some SJ (Small Jumbo) plans and will start that style with #4.

Here are some pictures of the progress.

I got the box all sealed up. There are some definite problems that are there and will be there. It appears that i went waaaaaay too thin on the back. The upper bout (on the back) is starting to flex dangerously easy, I suspect there is some cracking too. The sound-port didnt quite turn out like i had hoped, but it will do. I cut the brace channels on the sides a little too deep, I dont think the binding will be able to cover them up.

I hope to keep the determination to finish this one. I still need lots of practice with fretting and setup. I did start on #3, hopefully I can juggle the two.

I am well underway with #2 now. Things are going fairly smoothly. I sorta, kinda messed up on the rosette. You cant really tell unless you really have an eye for detail. This is my first construction of my own heel block, I am nervous because I am not sure i made the groove big enough. Oh well, we shall see.

Up to this point, I will be profiling the sides and then gluing my kerfing on. Then the back and top gets glued on!

As you can probably see, I did a hybrid of Spruce and Cedar bracing on the top. I am pretty eager to hear how that turns out.

Pics!