Filling Some Neck Gaps

Friday, June 12, 2009

Between work and some much-needed early summer-time chores, I did not get a lot done this week - but I did get a little.

After posting last Sunday, it dawned on me that I had made yet another mistake - while gluing the neck to the body, one of the things you need to do is to locate the neck at the proper depth with respect to the top of the head-block. Now this might seem pretty straight forward, but I can assure you it CAN be messed up. It’s not perfectly clear from my photos, but the head-block and top of the dovetail in the neck are in different planes - the neck plane is 6 degrees out from the top of the head-block. This means that, at best, only one edge of the two will line up while the other will be offset - no big deal provided that you align the correct edge. So which is the correct edge? The back one (closes to the tailblock - and even that is not EXACTLY the correct one) - and here is why.

The plane of the fretboard on the neck has already been established when it comes time to glue these two pieces together. The top of the head-block has not - it is flat with respect to the body. Once the glue in the dovetail joint dries the head-block needs to be sanded to match the fretboard plane. Now obviously (when your smart enough to think about it in advance) you need to align the neck so that all of the sanding is done to the head-block. I did not do this. I aligned it so that the top of the head-block was below the fretboard plane which, had I done nothing to correct it, would have meant creating a new plane for the fretboard. Not a good idea.

So what I did was to cut and add a thin shim (made from a left-over piece of maple side-wood) that matched the outline of the head-block. This, once glued to the head-block, I was able to sand it down to match the fretboard plane. Since this is located such that it is going to be almost completely hidden from view and then stained so dark that it will be almost impossible to detect, I feel pretty good about this fix.

Now, as I noted in my last post, I also needed a shim on the back of the neck. Just like the one I did on the front, I created a shim using another piece of maple side-wood and glued it to the neck. After sanding it to match the contour of the neck and the plane of the back, I think it looks pretty good, too.

I’m afraid I am not going to get to work on my mandolin next week at all (work, work, and more work), so (for all my followers) I apologize. I hope to post again in a couple of weeks.

Neck Joint Cutting - For Real

Sunday, June 7, 2009.

Well I finally cut my neck joint - this was the step I feared the most (so far). Having never attempted a dovetail joint before, I was just new I would mess it up to the point that I would have to start all over. Fortunately, it looks like this won’t be the case - at least not for this reason, anyway.



Cutting the body side of the joint was really straight forward since the design has this cut square with the body. Since I have yet to attach the back, the rim sets nicely on my bandsaw and once the shape was transferred from the template, it was as simple to cut as you could want.

As you can see from the photos, I ended up needing to install a shim on one side of my dovetail. This is a piece of the same maple veneer I have used elsewhere and ended up being necessary once I got finished trimming and sanding the curved section of the joint on both the neck and the body. The veneer turned out to be almost exactly the right thickness right out of the box. All I did was to cut a section the right length and width, glue it on to the side of the joint and let it set up before attaching the neck.

You will also notice that there is a spacer that has been attached to the head-block. Because the fretboard will eventually extend over the body but not be attached to it, there needs to be a support onto which it will attach. Furthermore, the design has a binding strip that matches up to with the 15th fret (I will be installing that pretty soon) and yet another extension that will act as a support out over the body. This piece fills the gap between the neck joint and the 15th fret that would otherwise be there. If this is not all perfectly clear, I imagine it will be once I get that part done and some photos up. In the mean time, here are some pictures of the joint in neck.




And finally, here is the joint glued together.






In addition to the shim I talked about earlier, I added a very thin shim to the opposite side of the dovetail in the back. I installed this shim as my last step just after the joint was made up. It acted to really tighten the joint up and to add just a tiny amount of twist that I needed to square the plane of the fretboard with the body.

When you look at the back of the joint, you will probably notice that the base of the neck is set back a bit from the body. This is a result of my over zealous sanding way, way back when I was first shaping the neck. I realized pretty early that this would likely be a problem at this stage, but figured it was a small enough issue that I would go ahead with it rather than to make a another neck. Since I intend to finish this part of the mandolin quite dark and this is not a critical piece, I plan to make a maple shim to fit here.

This can be our little secret.

Now to let the glue dry and get started working on the rest of the fretboard.

Introduction

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Welcome to my blog.

Before I get started, I want to share something with you. I really have no idea what I am getting myself into here. I have never built a stringed musical instrument before, let alone been to a shop where they do. I do not (yet) have a shop full of lutherie tools (in fact, I don’t own ANY luthier-specific tools yet), nor have I had any training other than general woodworking things Dad showed me as a kid and one basic shop class in High School. All that aside, I’m going for it full-bore.

This project will be to build a highly detailed, customized F-style mandolin with white pearl inlays and a custom carved front. I will start with raw materials - no preformed or pre-shaped pieces (except, of course, for the tuners, tailpiece, end pin, and such) - and use typical instrument grade components like European spruce for the top, curly maple for the back, sides, and neck, and hide glue for my adhesive. I intend to use power tools to rough-out most of the waste materials (no CNC) and then hand carve and finish everything else including the top, back, and neck. I hope to do all this with only the help of some books I bought (see the next post for details) and whatever information I can find on the internet. I will be doing all this work at my house (with my wife’s blessing, of course) in either the basement/garage or in an upstairs bedroom where we currently store, and occasionally use, exercise equipment. As I go along, I intend to detail everything I buy, build, or modify including tools and materials. I also plan to share all the prices I find and, when it is not obvious, why I chose one selection over the others.

I have decided to start this project for three reasons: One, I am bored and have no real “hobby” I can get into here at the house. Sure there is yard-work, the honey-do list, etc., but when those are done (or being ignored - don’t tell my wife), I don’t have a project. Two, I have been teaching myself to play the mandolin for about 8 years, love the instrument, and now, with the price of quality instruments being what it is, I would love to have - but not spend all that money on one. Three, I love deeply involved, intricate projects, where the results are lasting, visually apparent, and impressive. This seems like a good way to satisfy all three.

So now that you know why I want to build a mandolin, you may be wondering why I have decided to build what promises to be about the most difficult level of mandolin build right out of the chute. Wouldn’t it be better to start with maybe an A-style mandolin, possibly a flat-top, or even a kit? Travel your learning curve on an instrument that is a little less costly? Sure it would. All those are much safer and probably far more intelligent approaches to learning the art and craft of lutherie. But that is not me. Traveling any of those paths would feel like a compromise and one that would likely end up causing me to lose interest, take short-cuts, or possibly even lower my standards as I build. I don’t want to do that. I want the extra challenge and the potential to finish with a result where people go “WOW...And this was his first one?”

Lets just hope I am up for the task.

I would also like to take the time to credit a couple of guys for some of the inspiration and information I have used to get started here. I anticipate checking back with both as I go along with my build.

If you haven’t found him yet, there is guy who has his own blog where has started building an A-style mandolin from a kit (clearly he is far more intelligent then I am). Check him out HERE.

There is guy in Japan, an amateur luthier, too, who has a blog detailing his build of a guitar. It’s quite impressive. Check his work out HERE.

I’m going to go ahead and end this first post here and get into details of what I have done so far in my next post.