I’ll start this out with the final product – a nice, tight joint where the heel meets the body. It is not perfect, but it is close enough for me.
It all starts out with the neck blank. I am using a scarf joint for the headstock and a stacked heel block. This is an economical and strong way to build a neck out of a single plank of wood. There are a lot of tutorials out there, so I won’t repeat the process here. This was my starting point with the scarf joint complete and the Indian rosewood headstock overlay in place.
Next I transfer the required angle from the body of the guitar to the heel of the guitar. This angle should somewhat take care of itself it you built the top and sides to the specs designated in the plans. It is formed by the arch created in the top by the curved bracing and glue up using the radius dish. For me this resulted in about a 2 degree angle. Setting a straight edge on the body where the fingerboard extension will go and extending it back to the saddle location should result in about a 2.5 to 3.5 mm gap at the saddle. Mine was right about 2.5 mm, so I should be OK.
A 3/4″ wide tenon is then cut in the heel to match the angle. This tenon sets into a matching mortise in the guitar body.
I built a crude but effective jig to cut the mortise. Alignment of the jig to the centerline of the guitar body is critical to ensure that the neck will be straight.
Fine-tuning the fit between the neck and body is a slow, tedious process. I’m sure that this gets easier after you’ve built a few of these. In fact, I think it would have taken me less time to build a complex jig for my router. Files, chisels, and sandpaper were the tools of choice for me this time around.
Stay tuned for attaching the fingerboard, neck shaping, for marker dots.
