So, the fingerboard is finally glued to the neck, time to take a pause and go over some issues. The fingerboard arrived, approx, two and three quarter inches wide, 10mm thick and 27“ long. As I've already shown, I sanded the fingerboard profile ( in this case 20&rdquo
, the next time I came back to it, the board had started to curve up at the sides, compensating for the difference in overall thickness. It wasn't a massive amount but enough to split the board whilst clamping, in the end I sanded the bow out and glued the board in place. Next came the routing of the final neck shape using the plywood profile and the curve of the fingerboard profile caused havoc. Also when glueing the board to the neck I used speed clamps as I had four of them to hand, this was also a nightmare!
So next time the plan of action will be, get the truss rod in, as soon as fingerboard arrives glue it to neck, cut final shape with router and profile, then sand fingerboard profile. I should have mentioned the use of ‘G’ clamps for the fingerboard as the give infinite adjustment. Another thing is that somehow the width at the nut is 1/8“ narrower than a Fender Jazz Bass but I can live with that, I'll make the headstock slightly thicker to compensate for the extra weakness it creates. The body end of the neck is about 3” too long at the minute, this is to allow for the tenon as the neck will be glued to the body. The next job is to take 5mm off the top of the fingerboard in my mates thicknesser, (remember the old saying, “A friend with a 12” thicknesser/surfacer is a friend indeed!&ldquo
this means having to do the 20” profile again, can't wait!!
Overall though I'm fairly happy with the progress, not sure if this neck will end up on the proposed body but it will end up on something. One last thing, so far I've only spent £22 so can't complain really
, the next time I came back to it, the board had started to curve up at the sides, compensating for the difference in overall thickness. It wasn't a massive amount but enough to split the board whilst clamping, in the end I sanded the bow out and glued the board in place. Next came the routing of the final neck shape using the plywood profile and the curve of the fingerboard profile caused havoc. Also when glueing the board to the neck I used speed clamps as I had four of them to hand, this was also a nightmare!
