MEANGENE
So You Want to Build a Guitar? Pt. 5
Last month we created our headstock angle our neck blank. This also cuts our truss rod
and installed our truss rod. This month, we fillet flush with the neck and gets us ready
will get the fretboard and headstock veneer to glue the fretboard on. In my approach,
glued in place. the cutter machines a slight recess into our
blank where the fretboard is to be placed.
This aids in keeping the fretboard in the
general area I want it – you could also shoot
a short staple somewhere under the fret-
together can create a rigid miter to keep
frets slots tight. Luthiers Mercantile sells fret
slotting blades and templates that can be
screwed or taped to the back side of your
neck or board. The templates have a slot
where you mount a pin of matching size into
your miter gauge fence – do that and you’re
in business.
With set necks or neck-through designs, a
back bowed neck with no room for adjustment can be one of the biggest headaches
you’ll face. This is
why many companies use a two-way
or bi-flex truss
rod, which allows
for adjustment
in both directions. Different
rods come with
different installation methods and
design principles,
which will alter
your final tone, as
well as how the
neck reacts under
tension. I personally love the tone of
a single-piece, one
bar rod, but this
is the rod that has
the most problems
if your neck were
to back bow under
normal installation
methods. To com-
bat this, I build Gluing the fretboard and headstock veneer onto the guitar.
relief into my necks
– roughly .030” at the
center of the neck.
board and cut the head off slightly proud of
the surface to keep it from sliding around
while clamping.
The Concept
I like to keep the neck relaxed and free of
clamping stress during all machining operations. With many Fender-type necks (
rose-wood/maple, for example) the fretboard
thickness commonly tapers from fat at the
nut area to thin at the 21st fret area – this
isn’t a problem, as the board is actually
maintaining a constant thickness at center. If
you prefer a consistent fretboard thickness
at the fret edge, the center of the fretboard
would require a taper, being thickest at the
21st fret and thin at the nut to maintain a
thickness of 3/16” at the fret edge.
For fretboards, I
like to use Delrin
or nylon for a gluing cawl; nothing
sticks to them and
they flex easily
to adapt to your
wood, versus forcing your wood into
another shape.
Long fretboard-size
strips about 1/2”
thick help spread
the gluing pres-
sure evenly along
the neck, with
the help of five
bar clamps. For
headstock veneers,
I like to use 1/2”
thick Lexan as a
gluing cawl, which
provides me with
a clear window to
see any alignment
issues. I also cheat
and bust out a staple
gun, shooting staples into two corners of
the headstock veneer to keep it from sliding
during gluing. Place five bar clamps on the
headstock and your veneer is ready to roll.
Gluing
We are now ready to glue on our fretboard.
I order my boards from Luthiers Mercantile
( lmii.com); your boards will come in surface
sanded and well dried, ready for immediate use. For some, there are a few things
that will need to be decided now – are you
going to slot the fretboard before or after
it’s glued into place? It may be easier to buy
pre-slotted, pre-radiused fretboards or you
can do it yourself with a table saw or radial
arm saw and a few jigs.
That’s it until our glue dries. We’ll see you
next month.
Gene Baker
Any questions or comments visit
finetunedinstruments.com
meangene.org
b3gene@verizon.net
Fine Tuned Instruments LLC,
home of his “b3” instruments.
I tackle this using a 1/2” end mill, machining a taper and an arc with .030” relief into
If you do decide to do the slotting yourself,
slotting on a table saw using two miter
gauges and a long board to link them
