| The neck profile is roughed out on the bandsaw first |  |
| Laying the neck on the fingerboard side, the plan view is roughed out |  |
| Here are a couple of close up shots of the scroll end |  |
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| Now the scroll is marked out by making pinholes in the template to push a marking pen through |  |
| And a couple of guide lines sketched in freehand to indicate the edges of the scroll. |  |
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| Using a saw to remove the larger chunks of waste wood |  |
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| Now switch to a chisel or gouge to finish roughing the spiral |  |
The pegbox slot is cut down to leave about a 1/4 inch of thickness at the bottom and sides
Notice that the back of the scroll is also contoured with a couple of decorative grooves |  |
| The heel is now 'built up' by glueing on an extra block of wood. This saves the waste involved in cutting out from a deeper piece of timber. This block has no structural significance - it's just for appearances.
I use an epoxy glue for joins like this that will NEVER need to be taken apart (unlike, say, joining the fingerboard where I use a hide glue) |  |
Meanwhile, the fingerboard is cut to shape and slotted for the frets.
The slots are cut using a bandsaw (I've described this elsewhere on the site) and I prefer to press the frets into place using a vice rather than hammer them in. My opinion: there are only three legitimate uses for a hammer: nailing, riveting and cockroaches. |  |
| Now a bit of shape is given to the heel |  |
And - very critical, the holes drilled for the neck mounting bolts.
This needs extreme care - the holes are started with a small diameter drill to minimise 'wandering' and gradually opened out to the full 4mm diameter |  |
| Here are the modified wood screws that will hold the body and neck together. In this photo you can see that I dug these (No 12 woodscrews) out of my scrap box. Large woodscrews are surprisingly expensive. The head is removed and the shaft threaded at M6. One screw has been shortened for the lower part of the heel.
The screws must be inserted carefully into the neck, I use a spare screw as a 'tap' to cut a thread into the neck holes and grease it liberally with candle wax. |  |
After a lot of careful shaping, carving, scraping and drilling of the pegholes, the fingerboard is glued in place and a coat of tung oil completes the neck (almost - the finish is still rough and the final job will be hours of scraping and polishing, but at this stage, I wanted to get an idea of how it will look.)
(click the picture for a larger view) |  |
| Almost forgot - the neck needs a rebate to allow the head and tension ring to slip over the pot and move up and down freely
Here you can see the rebate - it's 1/2 inch deep and allows a good 1/4 inch clearance for the tension ring
This is also a good shot of the way that the coordinator rod holds the neck tight to the body with the additionaly stability provided by the second fastener below.
The tailpiece mounting bolt has been inserted loosely just to locate the end of the rod. |  |
