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Plane the fingerboard down to the width chosen when designing the guitar. With a rule laid across the fingerboard as shown in picture 1 the center line can be found very quickly. Note how I placed the rule: the zero-mark is exactly at one edge of the fingerboard and the 80mm mark exactly at the other. The center point is halfway between zero and 80mm, i.e. at 40mm.

As already mentioned in the chapter on design, the fingerboard shape is determined by the nut width and the width of the fingerboard at the last fret. Transfer this shape onto the fingerboard with a pencil. Picture 2 shows a fingerboard which was fastened in the workbench upright between cork clamping cauls and then had its edges planed. To plane a tapered edge start at one end and then set the plane back a bit and plane further; repeat this until you can plane down the whole length of the edge and the side is parallel to the line marking the fingerboard edge. Alternatively, you could also use this method for planing the edges with a jointer.

The wider slot behind the slot for the zero-fret in picture 1 will accept the nut. This fingerboard will be glued onto a neck with Fender-style peghead. On guitars with angled-back head the nut is placed between the fingerboard and the peghead veneer and held in place by these and a drop of glue.

Fingerboard inlays

Any inlay work on the fingerboard surface should be done now, before the fingerboard is glued on. The picture above shows large plastic dots made on a lathe. If you make a radiused fingerboard, thin inlays should only be fitted after the fingerboard surface has been rough-radiused. For details of materials that can be used for this purpose please refer to the section on peghead inlay work.

Gluing on the fingerboard

The fingerboard can now be glued onto the neck. It is up to you whether you rough-cut the neck shape now (3) or only after you have glued on the fingerboard (4). Several strong clamps and a long clamping caul are needed to spread the pressure evenly across the fingerboard surface. Cut a slot into the caul in the position of the first and the 15th fret. To ensure that the fingerboard does not slip about during gluing fasten it with small wire brads. Since these have to be removed later, they must obviously not be knocked in all the way and therefore require a bit of space in the clamping caul - which is provided for by the slots in the caul.

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Routing the neck shape

Rough-cut the neck shape with a jigsaw (1) or on the bandsaw (2), cutting about 2mm (3/32") outside the glued-on fingerboard or neck contour line. Then fasten the peghead template, and on a one-piece neck also the neck template, with double-stick tape and use a flush-trimming cutter with end-mounted ball bearing to rout the neck to shape (3) (See section on making the body for details of how to use the flush-trimming cutter). A short cutter bit will do for routing the neck, but you can of course also just set the one used for routing the body a bit lower.

When making a neck with glued-on fingerboard I use the fingerboard as a guide for the ball bearing. If the fingerboard should have a slight projection at the neck end, sand this end flat before gluing on the fingerboard.

Flush-trimming cutter bits with shank-mounted ball bearing can be used for routing necks with angled heads (4). When routing such necks be particularly careful and stop just before the point where the head and the neck meet (5). The safest approach is to make the peghead template not too thick and to fasten it so that it butts up against the fingerboard. This provides a continuous template edge for the ball bearing. The cutter bit used could just as well only be half as long as the one shown in picture 4. The guard, which was removed for this picture, should always be used whenever you do any work on the router table.

Bound head

The binding rabbet around the head can be cut with a flush-trim- ming cutter provided its ball bearing is removed and a smaller one mounted instead. After applying

5some glue use strips of adhesive tape to press the wooden binding into the channel. At the corners, miter the binding with a small chisel. The ends towards the fingerboard will be hidden by the nut.

Drilling the tuner holes

Mark the centers of the tuner shaft holes before drilling. Measure the diameter of the tuners, mount the drill in a stand and then drill the holes vertically so that they are ideally the right diameter straight away and no filing is required later. When drilling, press the head firmly against the workboard to prevent the wood from splintering, which can easily happen when the bit comes out at the bottom of the head. Brad point drill bits are ideal due to their handy point. When drilling holes into an angled-back head a block of wood has to be put under the head (6). Drilling the tuner shaft holes for 6-in-line tuners at equal distances from each other is made easier with a jig consisting of a fence and an index pin in the workboard (7). The short pin sticking out from the workboard is placed at exactly the desired tuner-shaft-distance from the drill bit. After a hole has been drilled, this hole is “anchored” at the pin and the next hole is drilled. This will ensure equal distances between the tuner shaft holes.

Shaping a Fender-style peghead

Fender-style heads, which are lower than the fingerboard, can also be cut out on a bandsaw (8). Lock the guard of the bandsaw blade in a position slightly further from the table than the head is deep. Lay up the neck with its back facing the fence. As you approach the nut, tilt the neck downwards to get a cut parallel to the nut. Just before the nut the sawblade is made to rise out of the wood in an evenly-curved line. The radius of this curve should correspond to the radius of one of your sanding drums.

For routing the face of the peghead flat you can use the jig shown in picture 9. Such a jig also allows making the head thinner without need for a bandsaw. By inserting a piece of very thin metal, such as a feeler gauge, between the depth stop of the router you will be able to lower the surface-trimming cutter bit very precisely. The area which the cutter bit can reach has to be limited with a stop.

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Index pin

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Stop block on the outfeed table

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The curve towards the nut can also be made with a cove bit. In picture 1 you can see me using a small-radius cove bit; I used it only because I didn't have a bigger one. A greater radius is preferable, though, not only because it looks better, but also because it gives better stablility.

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The picture is only to illustrate the basic idea. Make sure to set the stop blocks very accurately.

You can also use the table saw for thinning the peghead and for rough-shaping the curved transition (2). With this method the radius is determined by the table saw blade. Use a stop block and make several cuts beside each other. This is a quick method especially if you use a dado blade.

If your jointer allows lowering the infeed table by 10mm (3/8") or more, which should be possible on larger machines, I would use it for planing a Fender-style (lowered) peghead (3) as this will give a smooth surface immediately. The transition curve towards the nut is determined by the radius of the jointer's cutterhead in this case. Plane in several passes, removing about 1.5mm (1/16") on each pass. I would recommend that you use a long support block (fastened with double-stick tape) over the peghead area on the back of the neck blank as this will avoid vibrations. A stop must be fastened on the outfeed table. If the cutterheads are to leave a smooth surface, the grain in the peghead has to run towards the nut. Bear this in mind when deciding which end of the neck blank is to be the peghead end.

Sanding is the far more common method of smoothing the curved area between the neck and the head. This is done in the same way on both one-piece necks, such as the one shown in picture 4, and necks with glued-on fingerboard. Care is needed, though, for you do not really want to sand off too much and end up with a depression, in which case the head would have to be made thinner than originally intended. To be on the safe side it is therefore advisable to leave the head slightly thicker before you start sanding. The sanding drum can also be mounted vertically in a drill press. With this approach an already tapered neck is clamped to a workboard so that the neck center line is parallel to the workboard edge. The workboard and the attached neck can now be placed upright on the drill press table and guided towards the sanding drum along a fence.

Finish off by smoothing and sanding the head to shape (5,6). Be patient, watch out for uneven curves, and make corrections if necessary.