Sunday, November 22, 2009

Construction begins - Neck

After measuring and marking the neck ready for the 14 degree scarf joint cut and checking and triple checking my measurements I was ready to make my first cut into a nice New Guinea rosewood neck blank.

Weapon of choice for the first cut was a Japanese handsaw as it produces fine smooth cut line  (0.5mm wide).

I began cutting slowly and deliberately keeping the cut adjacent the pencil line. Approximately 50% through the cut  I could cut no further - failed to note the ridge across the top of the saw blade (attaches the blade to the saw handle). I was kicking myself for forgetting that detail so I continued the cut from the otherside.
The cut was a mess as they didnt meet up exactly so a bit of smoothing was required..

No matter how hard I tried I could not get the scarf joint to sit flush. After using a block plane, handheld sanding block and a flat sanding board nothing was working. So to "solve" the problem I decided to take to the edges with the bandsaw to get a straighter edge for joining. The result was better but not perfect or even close to acceptable but I glued the scarf joint resigned to the fact that the neck was going to be a disaster.

Failed scarf joint - both sides.



In using the bandsaw to "smooth" the edges I had inadventantly shortened the length of the headstock to the point where I could just fit the tuners and no room for the top of the headstock. If the neck wasnt a write-off before it certainly was now - crappy joint and a headstock that would have to be left flat/square, no room for a nice scrolling headstock pattern.

I was soooooo frustrated it was time for a beer. What a difference a beer makes, everything became clearer. I decided this disaster of a neck was going to be my practice neck. I made a few measurements to calculate how much extra wood was required (+ extra for further mistakes) to increase the headstock to its correct size and glued on the "missing" length.

"Practice" neck complete. This neck will be used as a dry run for drilling tuner holes, carving headstock shape and string cutouts..etc.





The reason I failed miserably getting the joint smoothed was due to a few factors:
1. Block plane was not sharp enough - occassionally dug into the wood.
2. Hand held sanding block isnt a great idea with such a small surface area - difficult to keep even pressure and you run of the sides of the joint rounding them.
3. Sanding board failed as you need even pressure and must maintain the angle. I failed in both areas causing the thin ends to become rounded, so when place together to form the joint it created a 1mm gap.

EDIT: Ive since realised that all that is required to smooth the scarf joint is A SHARP block plane.

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