The Neck

It's been a good two days.

DAY ONE:

While I was waiting for the pore filler to dry on the dreadnought, I had some time to get back to the weird classical. I decided to start working on the neck.

I first started by cutting the fingerboard. I had bought a 640 mm scale slotted classical fingerboard. I cut it off at the first fret, for the shorter scale of my weird classical. I then sanded the top surface of the fingerboard, to make it taper slightly down from the nut end to the soundhole end. I also made the bass side of the fingerboard a bit lower still.

Next, I made the neck blank. It's much the same process as doing the dreadnought neck blank: I cut a 15-degree angle on the 3-1/2" mahogany board, flipped the 8" angled piece over, and glued it to the bottom of the other piece. This formed the peghead.

I also glued four 4" pieces of the same board together, to form the stacked heel. I will glue that on later.

DAY TWO:

Below are photos of what I did today.

This is the template I made for the peghead of my weird classical. I wanted something simple.

I glued a rosewood veneer, with green and blue veneers underneath, to the neck blank, and then cut out the peghead shape.

Here's the peghead, after I have drilled the tuner peg holes (I used the same dowel jig I used to drill the holes for my threaded inserts on the dreadnought heel). I have also cut the two long slots in the peghead. After all that was done, I ramped the lower ends of the two slots.

 

 

Here's a close-up of the green/blue veneers I've sandwiched underneath the rosewood veneer of the peghead.

To the right is a view of the peghead, with the tuners temporarily placed into position to check their fit.

All in all, I really enjoyed making the classical peghead! It was an enjoyable new experience, and not as difficult as I had thought it would be.....

 
I put the heel block on the neck shaft, after I had drilled a hole in the heel for the 1/2" dowel. As on the dreadnought, I run a dowel at the body end of the heel, so that the bolts I'm using will not have to bite into end grain.  

 

 Go to :

  1. Planning & Mold
  2. Joining the Top & Making the Rosette
  3. Bracing the Top
  4. The Back
  5. The Sides
  6. The Soundbox
  7. The Neck
  8. Binding
  9. Shaping the Neck
  10. The Bridge
  11. The Finishing
  12. It's Finished!!!

(last updated 9/7/98)
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