Detail Work Begins
We start the final fabrication of this neck by carving the back profile. Using rasps, planes, and sand paper. Observing a careful attention to detail the neck profile is formed bit by bit until it feels and measures up to our other instruments used for reference.
Various views of the neck profile during shaping.
The headstock has a thin veneer of wood, in this case Alder, glued to the face to mimic the look of a real Gibson. No logo for this one, we are expressly NOT trying to create a forgery, merely our own personal instrument. Then the headstock shape is refined using files, saws and sandpaper.
The shaped neck is fitted to the body.
The tuner holes are also drilled around this time. You can see where we wanted to make sure that this SG style guitar didn’t suffer from neck wobble the way some do. We built this one to have a sort of ‘long tenon’ that extends into the body and under the neck pick-up.
The neck, shaped and hand fitted to the body (including double checking the final neck angle for clearance over the bridge) is glued into place paying close attention to the vertical alignment of the neck. You can also see here where the heel of the body has been shaped to form a comfortable taper.
Left: The neck shaped and sanded. Right: The neck heel shaped.
The rest of the project we will outline below, though fretting the neck and finishing, wiring the electronics as well as the final set-up are really whole projects in themselves so they are covered only briefly.
Wrapping Up
With our body and neck glued together the neck was then drilled for dot position markers front and side. Then fretted. The headstock sprayed black. A water based finish was color matched and applied in several coats with the last few coats a clear coat. The area right on the body right around where the neck is glued in was rough sanded slightly, and blended with the matched color for the neck. The whole instrument was then hung up to dry for a few weeks and then wet sanded and polished. The nut cut and fitted. Tuners installed. Finally, after 4 weeks of heavy duty modding and building, it is done. Behold the EB0 Guitar!
