Change of plans...

The weather has finally turned and the humidity is up. I don't like to do too much with the top or back while its so humid. While I'm waiting for the weather to get back to normal, I'll work on the neck and fingerboard.

I changed my mind about the fingerboard for this guitar. While I really like the look of Honduran Rosewood, I recently got a few bloodwood fingerboards and bridges from LMI. One of the boards and bridge blanks is a little darker than the others and I thought it would look nice bound with some of the walnut cut-offs from the back.

First, I had to cut the fret slots. I don't have a table saw, so I do it 'old school' with a miter saw. The bloodwood is hard and dense, and it took a while to get all the slots cut.


Here is a quick-and-dirty view of what I have in mind for this one. I really like the way the bloodwood looks next to the walnut, and I think using cut-offs from the back will tie things together.


With the frets slots cut and the center of the fingerboard carefully marked, I trimmed the nut end of the board. I leave ~1/32 inch so I can trim right down to the mark more accurately.

One thing I learned from the first couple of guitars is to keep the center line marks on the fingerboard and neck clear and easy to read. That includes the marks on the back of the fingerboard and the back of the neck. That will make things much easier later when I drill holes for the index pins to attach the FB to the neck. Having the center marked on the back of the neck will help me carve the profile.

With the nut end of the board cut, I set up the radius jig. It cuts a compound radius that starts at ~10 inches at the nut and ends at ~20 inches at the end of the fingerboard. After routing the radius, I re-cut the fret slots to make sure they are deep enough and then clean up the router bit marks with sandpaper.





The next step is trimming the nut end right to the mark. I use a sandpaper covered jointer plane and my shooting board to make sure the end of the board is at a 90 degree angle.

I spent some time with a sanding block and sandpaper, going from 150 grit to 320 grit to take care of the tool marks. The bloodwood is hard like H. rosewood so it doesn't take much to give it a shine. Even stopping at 320 grit, I can see the surface is starting to shine through the sanding scratches.

The last thing I did today was to work on the binding. I ran them through the drum sander to clean them up and thin them down to ~0.130 inch. I used a little mineral spirits on the wood to get an idea how things will look under finish.