July 30, 2004 . . . . .

Now it's time to work on the neck again. I have carved the heel, primarily using my mini-drawknives I've had for years. Then I used a scraper ans 120-grit sandpaper to smooth out the tool marks. I must be getting better at this, because it felt a lot easier and went a lot faster than it used to.

BELOW I am gluing the fingerboard to the neck. I first inserted the Hot Rod truss rod, putting a few dabs of silicone bathroom sealer in the bottom of the slot, to cushion the rod. Then, as the Stew-Mac Hot Rod instructions suggest, I placed a strip of 3/4" wide masking tape over the rod, spread Titebond glue over the neck surface, and removed the tape. That way, when the glue spreads with clamping, it will just go to the edge of the truss rod slot and no further.

I then set the fingerboard on the neck (I had previously drilled two tiny brad holes through frets 3 and 11 to position the fingerboard properly on the neck) and clamped it up, using a fingerboard caul I had made years ago. The caul has slots at the fret positions, so there is just wood-to-wood contact.

Saturday, July 31st, 2004. . .

Today I did what I always enjoy --- carving the neck shaft. Once again, my main tool is the mini-drawknife, but I also use the Microplane drawknife and round Microplane.

RIGHT: I have glued a scrap piece of white plastic to a piece of scrap ebony for the heelcap and glued it to the end of the heel, after determining where I needed to cut the heel so the white line of the heelcap would meet the white line of the binding. Then I carved and shaped the heelcap.

A little visualization exercise. . . I bolted the neck to the body, to see how it would look . . .

It's looking like a guitar, for sure, now!!!!