Official Luthiers Forum!

OK, moving on to the neck (OM Martin). What is the proper order of events after dry fitting?

Frets installed, buttons intalled, tuning machine holes drilled, then glue fret board to neck? Or what?

Mike

indeed.....

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

I think what they are trying to say is, the only correct order of operations is as follows...

1. Ask the question.

2. Get a few adament responses that you should always fret after the board is glued to the neck.

3. Get a few adament responses that you should always pre-fret and that anyone who thinks otherwise is a goof ball.

4. Get a few responses that say you should just order a pre-made cnc neck and fb from a sponsor.

5. Get a few responses implying that ayone who doesn't carve their own necks with sharpened rock is a goof ball.

6. Get a few responses from people who are leaving the board in disgust.

7. Decide to ignore everyone and come up with your own sequence that works just fine.


I like to fret first and drill tuner holes after finishing, but I may be a goof ball because I don't know what "buttons" are.

Lots in the archives on this.

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

Sorry, MOP fret markers (buttons).

You have to be kidding me... this is a point of contention (the order of events)?

OK, unless I hear different, MOP first, frets second, glue FB to neck last.

Reason I even asked had most to do with the fact that the frets might cause pressure points when glueing FB to the neck.

Mike

Sorry to be flippant and of little help but the I thought I'd flesh out the s a bit.

The main point of contention seems to be that some folks find it difficult attach the neck to the body without getting a hump on the FB at the joint. Fretting last gives you the opportunity to fix that. But it also puts a back-bow in the neck after you have gone to great lenghths to make it flat. Some find that back-bow a good solution to the front bow caused by string tension.

I prefer to pre-fret because I like pressing frets rather than hammering and it's way easier to do that before the board is attached. Hammering frets and trimming and finishing the ends also provides you with a wide array of possibilities to screw up an otherwise finished guitar and since I am pretty good at that already, I don't need the practice.

Fine results can be had either way and either way can be royally screwed up. Do check the archives though as there is plenty of info there to make either approach easier.

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

So the bow in the neck comes from inserting the frets which tend to "spread" the fret board?

Good to know!

The main point of contention seems to be that some folks find it difficult attach the neck to the body without getting a hump on the FB at the joint

At what joint?

Thanks!

Mike

The joint they rolled up last week

no, the joint between the neck and the body of the guitar. not a good place to have a hump...

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Reguards,

Ken H

It sounds like we are at the same build point for the moment. Right or wrong this is what I've done so far... I cut the slots, radiused the board with (16" - 20" in this case), cut the slots again because they went to nearly nothing on the sides, realized it was still a little on the thick side so I radiused some more, cut the slots... again, tapered the board, bound with off-cut from the board, leveled out the board one more time for good measure, looked at it and scratched my head for a while, got up the nerve to fret, fretted, put side markers in, compensated back-bow by weighting it in the middle (put ends up on 1/2" blocks and set a brick in the middle over night), and now I am going to epoxy it to the neck and do the neck shaping. This is my first so I just followed one of the plethora of ways I've heard this should be done. We'll see how it turns out. Good luck with yours!!

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Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils - Louis Hector Berlioz

Chansen / C hansen / C. Hansen / Christian Hansen - not a handle.

Christian

How well did that work for you? Did you get the board back to flat?

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53% of all statistics are made up on the spot
http://driftwoodguitars.blogspot.com/

[/quote]How well did that work for you? Did you get the board back to flat?[/quote]

It completely flattened out the board which I actually left over a second night too. Actually when I removed the weight it had a slight bow the other direction but then finally settled down to pretty much dead flat when checked with a straight edge. I don't foresee any problems when I glue it to the neck. But then again I didn't foresee a lot of the hurdles I've had to navigate around or work through..

_________________
Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils - Louis Hector Berlioz

Chansen / C hansen / C. Hansen / Christian Hansen - not a handle.

Christian

That fingerboard flattening technique was first posted by Mario. Works for me too.

And the hump shows up because the neck bowed? Sorry for all the questions, but its something like this that I am likely not to understand until after I have screwed up.

Sounds like if I fret first, then I need to "relax" the fret board back before glueing to neck... that it?

Mike

I'll be selling the tee shirts by the dozen soon... The brick idea sounds good.

Mike