The Road Bike

Bob's Guitar in the White

Well, tomorrow she goes off to Joe for application of the finish.  Joe sands, seals and sprays perfect coats of lacquer, drop fills and buffs out the nicest finish I have ever seen.  That's why I let him do it instead of me.  While Joe is working his magic, I make the bridge, which is glued on after the finish is applied.  The only thing left to do is to cut the nut and saddle and then the guitar gets a set up and...voila, magic.

Rehearsal

The Neck is Fitted and We Take a Look

Headplate of Wenge

I resaw the Wenge lengthwise and open to make a nice book-matched plate for the headstock and heel plate.

The Wenge is thinned to about 1.5 mm and glued to the front face of the headstock. Later, the headstock is tapered to be thinner at the end and about 1.5mm thicker at the nut.  No reason to taper the headstock, but it looks cool, I like it, and nobody will ever notice.

Two important jigs that I made by cutting one piece of wood in a nice curve.  The one on the left I use to layout the side curve of the head stock.  The one on the right, which is the exact match to the one on the left is designed to hold sandpaper to sand the curve on the sides of the headstock after it is rough cut on the bandsaw or by hand.

The finished head stock with plate of book matched Wenge.  The edge of the headplate is cut at 15 degrees (because the head is angled from the top of the neck at 15 degrees) in order to abut the nut when it is installed between the headplate and the fretboard.  Really like how that came out. 

Fretboard Day at Courtright Guitar Wurcs

The fretwire comes in a convenient coil which I snip into frets.

With a triangle file, I bevel the fret slots to ease entry of the fret

Banging home the frets- possibly the most fun thing to do in this whole process

The concrete floor is the perfect substrate since it don't bounce at all

Now the ends are cut off - eye protection is very, very important

Serious eye protection

Serious pose- thinking about how much my finger hurts after I caught it under my fret hammer

Admiring my handiwork whist I watch television - a favorite vampire movie

New Art for the Dining Room - Thanks, Matt Morris