Four Part Harmony

We’ve been sort of preoccupied this past week or so, and I feel like I haven’t gotten much done on the guitar. But then I look at the pictures I’ve taken, and the last time I posted anything, and I’m realizing I’ve come quite a ways really.

I started in on installing the fretwire, which wasn’t too bad a job, although I won’t really know how it came out until I get around to doing a final setup. I first cut all the wire to length, then had to cut the fret tangs off the ends, since I had bound the fretboard. Once I had them all cut I just started hammering them in.

You can see that, since I chose to bind the fretboard, I needed to trim the tang off the fret at each end where it overhangs the binding. It took a bit longer, but wasn’t really too bad. You can also see that some of the frets aren’t seated all the way in this picture. I ended up having to go back and individually apply small amounts of super glue to the end of each wire and clamp it down to make sure that they were all seated.

And here’s the mostly finished fretboard. I filed the ends flush with the edges of the binding, but will hold off on recrowning or shaping the frets at all until closer to the final setup. With the fretboard done to this stage though, I was starting to think that I was ready to take the big step and glue up the neck. Of course I hemmed and hawed for a night or two…wasn’t sure if I’d thought of everything, wasn’t sure my neck joint was perfect enough (it likely wasn’t). After a couple nights of minor tweaking I got up the nerve and installed the truss rod in the neck, put the neck into position, positioned and aligned the fretboard, and glued and clamped everything up.

Of course I didn’t get a picture, but in the morning it was looking something like this. I’ve done some subsequent work on the neck with scraper and sandpaper, and I’ve actually now gotten everything sanded to 400 grit and ready for finishing. Which is great! Except for the fact that I don’t know much about that part yet. I need to do the finishing prior to gluing on the bridge though, so I’ve been reading, and will probably be able to get started on it in the next few days. I’m planning on trying my hand at french polishing with shellac, and possibly using tru-oil (gunstock oil) for the neck. Prior to starting on any of that, though, I need to fill the pores in the rosewood and mahogany, which is what I’m reading about right now. For anyone that needs to know, here’s a great tutorial on french polishing guitars.

Here’s the back, all sanded up and ready for finishing. Even the neck, I think I’ve finally gotten it to the point where it feels pretty comfortable in my hand and I don’t want to mess with it any more.

A couple more photos, since I have them. This is a moose bone that my dad brought out from Minnesota which a friend had given him to give to me (thanks Pat!). I’ll use it to carve out the nut and saddle for the guitar. Nuts and saddles on most higher end guitars are made from cow bone (cheap ones use plastic I guess, in the old days I think they used ivory). Moose bone is reportedly denser and should make really nice material for making nuts and saddles. If I’m able to work with this bone without screwing up too many times, there should be plenty of material here for several guitars too.

And here’s the piece of ebony I’ll be carving the bridge from. Between this and the nut and saddle, these are the last pieces I still need to make for the guitar. Everything else is finishing and setup. I haven’t decided yet what kind of bridge to make. I’ll probably stick with a design pretty close to the standard Martin bridge though, in the interest of keeping it consistent with the rest of the guitar.

As much as I feel like I sort of see the end in sight, I still feel like there are a lot of little (and big) things to be done, and a lot to be learned.