Making a four string neck part 5 (pressing the frets)

Once i sanded my fretboards how i like them I pressed and trimmed the frets

The pictures tell the story. I used to hammer them but that was a pain in the ass so I made this press. and Also made a few blocks and shims so I can press all the frets up to the high end.notice how I turned my kitchen table into my workshop. this makes my wife so happy.....not.

dig the blurry pics.

 I use a pair of flush cut nippers to trim the ends close so i don't have to file so much.

Brick chisel. I layed about a million bricks in the front of my house with this in it's first life.

Making a four string neck part 4 (beveling the neck)

After I cut the frets I am ready to bevel the back sides of the neck on the bandsaw following some guide lines. the neck in cross section will look like the picture below.

 

 I mark the neck .4 from the bottom and draw a line the whole length of the neck (lines with arrow indicators are the two cuts. if you study the next two drawings you'll see what I'm talking about. Cut 2 actually will be done first (don't ask) and the bandsaw will be set at 90 deg. then cut 1 will be done second and the bandsaw will be set to 45 deg.

now that I beveled the back the neck will sit nicely in the vee blocks on the fret press. but first I glue on the ears so we have enough wood to make the shape headstock I want. you can put them however you want for the shape you need. I put wax paper wherever the glue will squeeze out and don't worry about over seepage, I can just sand that right down with the palm sander. The ears also strengthen the first (center) joint.

Quick clamps are the bomb.

Making a four string guitar neck part 3 (marking and slotting the frets)

Now we are ready to slot the frets. I square up the nut slot with a nice square file and clamp a dummy nut in to measure from so there is no guessing where I'm measuring from. I charted out my fret distances on a piece of paper and marked the neck with a nice sharp pencil. Mine is a 24" fret scale.

When I was visiting my in-laws down in Georgia my Uncle Tommy gave me this cheap harbor freight pull saw that just so happened to have the exact blade thickness I needed so  I tossed the crappy handle and since it was so wobbly, I added two side rails to it for straightness and stiffness. I also mounted the side rails on the blade to coincide with the thickness of steel guide that I have been using. I mounted the guides so once resting atop the fret guide the teeth will only penetrate the fretboard at the depth i need. This makes it easy not to screw up the slots. Guide is just a piece of rectangular tool steel that I recieved  with this old Mill I had. I used to use it as a spacer for clamping and machining. I squared off the end to a perfect 90 degrees so that i can just use the long side to line it up with the fretboard and the front edge will be square. Sometimes I press a piece of wood against the side of the blade that's showing to guide and start the slot. then its a matter of how accurately you marked your slots and if you can cut exactly on that line. The pencil line width is just about the same size as the blade thickness so I just clamp the guide so that I can see the whole line and nothing more. Try not to ter up the side of the fretboard.

Fret press

I made this fret press and thought I would share it before I finish the neck making posts. I need to fret three necks so I broke down and made this press. It features 2 inch thich quarter sawn white oak. The whole unit is 21" long by 7-1/2 wide and weighs about forty pounds or more. I used a brick chisel for the press head. first I flattened and shaped the face of the chisel to accept the groove and then I ran a zip wheel over the face to get a groove to guide my file and finished the face with a small round file. The handle is I think from a snowblower or something. I said to myself, "one day I'll use those", and low and behold I used one. 

The rest is just drilling and shaping and bolting. not as easy as it sounds. for now I use vee blucks to hold the necks since the necks come off the bandsaw with a perfect beveled back, but I can easily make a block to hold fully shaped necks. It works like a charm and is much easier than hammering frets. You do still have to hammer in some of the higher frets though.

Gallery

Building a four string cigar box guitar (part 2)

next will be cutting off the ends of the neck stock to get rid of the bad ends created by the planer and then marking our neck blanks for the 20 degree angle needed for the headstock relief and marking the  cuts we need to fit the box lid. the finished neck will look something like the one in the picture below

 

 There will be a fretboard overhang of 1.5" and inside the box the neck will continue in and be glued to the underside of the lid. Plus we will add a heel and drill and tap it to accept a threaded rod that will be tightened against the heel trapping the front side of the box and continue through and ou the back to create a truss that will counteract string tension.

The piece inside will be tapered from the front inside toward the middle of the soundboard to allow maximum resonance with maximum strength.  here are the markings for the cuts we need to make . we will be making these marks after we cut our headstock angles but i am showing them to you now so you can see what I'm talking about.

 

 but lets back up and make all the pieces we need for this section starting with the headstock center piece. below are some headstock pieces freshly cut on the bandsaw. our headstock will be three pieces all are 1/2" thick. notice that this these were planed thinner than the neck blanks so thet they will work for the tuners we are using which are simple Stew-Mac open geared tuners that are excellent for the price. 

 

our neck will measure 16.5" from the end of the fretboard ( front of nut) to the front of the box. so first we will mark our headstock angle on both pieces (neck blank and headstock center) , cut it on the bandsaw, and flatten it on our belt sander or joiner if you have one. Mark the pieces at any angle that will work for you. I use 20 degrees.

 

 

 

Not there yet. these angles need to be flat flat flat for a good strong fit.

 

Now that's much better. notice how tight our joint is. this takes a lot of finesse to do on a belt sander. Notice the reference line. This is not the line I marked in the picture above. sometimes you need to do this a few times, mark sand to the line, mark again, sand to the line and so on. this is why we do not mark for our cigar box until after this operation. I always seem to take off more than expected. also in the picture below I am only using this piece of wood to check the accuracy of the sanding, the wood will not be glued here as you will see below.

 

it is not as important to sand the neck angle perfect as it is the headstock angle. the angle cut onto the headstock is going to be where our joint is. The angle on the neck will be part of the top of the headstock as shown in the pic below. you can clearly see the four pieces of wood, neck, headstck center and two "ears"

 before we glue our headstock on we will mark for our nut thickness of .215" plus a tiny bit of extra so in this case i made it an even 1/4" from the edge of the headstock angle. the we will mark the neck blank at 16'5" and finally make the markings for the box.

 

 after we have made our cuts we are ready to cut our fretboard to length which is a total of 18" including our 1.5" overhang.

 now we are ready to glue our fretboard.so our fretboard doesn't roam around I then  lightly sand and wipe with a damp cloth all of the surfaces to be glued, then using our nut blank wrapped in wax paper as a clamping stop, I spread a nice layer of wood glue onto the topside of our neck blank and clamp together. notice the nice thick piece of oak i planed flat to ensure that our neck remains straight and that even pressure is applied. use as many clamps as you can for this. I know I am only showing three but usually I use five or six.

 Here are a few pics of  a finished cocobolo neck ready to have the headstock glued on.

This is how we will be gluing the headstock.

 using a small piece (this is actally our heel piece which is 1.35" by 1.5" by .75) wrapped in wax paper as a clamping guide we get ready to glue our pieces. remember to always assemble everything first and do a test run with your clamps before putting glue on. and also mark both pieces with pencil lines that cross the joint so you can make sure you are accurately clamping them and nothing moves.

 you must clamp both pieces down to the table before applying clamping pressure to the actual joint or else the pieces will want to slide apart due to the slippyness of the glue.

 notice the markings spanning the joint to make sure we are lined up.

Now we are just gonna have to wait it out. this joint by itself is not very strong but once we glue our ears on it will be rock solid.  Note that I usually cut my fret slots before i glue the headstock on but I am not finished making my slotting saw yet so for this one we are doing it slightly out of order.