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Thought I would show what I have done so far on the OM kit I bought from John Hall.

I clamped a scrap piece of wood to the mold and used it as a guide fence then placed adhesive backed sandpaper on the mold to sand a radius in the face of the neck block. Like this:





Well, I ended up removing more material on one side of the block than the other......and by the time I got it evened out, the neck block was a little too narrow.

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

Ok, I'm a little irked.....just spent 20 min adding to the post above and lost it all as the site said I could no longer edit or delete the post. I thought we had 2 hours to make edits? I only took 20 min and I'm locked out.

Maybe I'll add to this later when I'm not so irked......

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

Darryl,

Irked or not I like your idea for shaping the block. I never thought of that! Get some rest, come back fresh and then post away.

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I'll finish the post tomorrow. My daughters participate in Playday on Friday nights where they ride their horses doing barrels, poles, Western Pleasure, etc. competitions so I'll be there till late tonight.

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

The continuation:

As I mentioned at the end of my last post, I sanded the neck block unevenly. I placed a radius across the entire face of the block and the radius wasn't square with the sides and back of the block. After working at it, I finally got it radiused evenly but when I measured, overall the block was a little thinner than I was comfortable with. So, I got to do my first repair.

I used my table saw and cut the face back square with the back of the block then sanded the face flat on a glass plate. I then sanded a flat face on a spare piece of mahogany, glued it to the face of the block, then cut the face square and back to the original thickness on the tablesaw. I sanded the face flat again on the glass and used a flush trim bit in my router to trim the overhang flush with the sides and mortise. So the neck block looked like this when I was finished:



Then I glued the neck and tail blocks to the rims:







Next, I needed to sand the 1 1/2 degree angle of the fretboard extension into the rim. I had an old, formica covered counter top I replaced in our spare bathroom. It was flat and I figured the formica would provide a slick surface so I cut it up to make a sanding board. I also cut up another piece the thickness to make the correct slope. I attached sandpaper to the board using 3M contact cement. It looks like this:



And the rim looks like this when sanding was complete:



Now I needed to glue the lining in place. And wouldn't you know it, on both sides I forgot to snap a picture before removing the clamps <smile>. Oh well, here is what the rims look like now:







That's where I'm at now. I just started testing Chladni patterns on my unbraced soundboard and will test again after bracing. I've only found 2 patterns so far at 78 Hz and 170Hz. The patterns look like this using sawdust (first is 78Hz then 170 Hz):

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

BTW, I forgot to mention before, but one of the reasons I'm making this post is to get feedback. If you see something I could do easier or better.....or something I've done wrong, please let me know. This is my first build so I know there is a lot of room for improvement.

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

Darryl, it seems to be progressing nicely. Your work looks clean, well executed.

As for editing, you have about 5 minutes to edit a post before it gets locked down.

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Aoibeann

Looking good Darryl! I think you're doing great so far Did you radius the neck block the second time around (I assume you did it the same way). I also radius my neck block that way, but I do it just a bit different. First I hold the block to the outside mold and draw the radius of the mold on the block. Than I use my block plane and shape it to the line. I do the final sanding the way you do it, but I put a second 'rail' on the other side of center so the block doesn't skew one side to the other. When setting up the rails, I clamp the block to the mold and put a triple folded piece of paper on either side than clamp the rail in place. Also, I just put the sand paper down and the clamped rails hold it in place.

A close up of the rosette would be nice.

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Rod, I did radius the neck block again; however, I did it differently per a tip from John Hall. I placed the neck block on the neck and aligned it where it will eventually be mounted. Then I traced the outline of the heel onto the neck block. When I sanded the radius back on the neck block, I stopped when I got to teh outline of the heel.......meaning I left the portion of the neck block that will be clamped against the heel unradiused.

I like the process you described for radiusing the neck block. I think a fence on either side of the block would work better as somehow, the way I was holding pressure against the fence on one side caused me to sand the neck block thinner on that side. And why not let the rails hold your sandpaper in place?......good idea!

The rosette is blue pua and was done by John Hall so I can't take credit for it. I'm building this first guitar for my daughters and my 13 yr old picked out the pua......though I like it and John inlaid blue pua squares and diamonds on the fretboard for me so it matches well. I may try an inlay on the headstock if I come up with a way to write "Young" that looks nice. Any ideas for a design or nice font for the headstock???

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......