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Five string fretless singlecut.

#22
By the way the neck is mostly done, I just need to take some time to post the pics!!

Then the only things left to do are:
-machinehead holes
-fingerboard radius
-pearl markers on side and face of fingerboard
-batteries cavity
-Pickups cavities
-neck pocket
-gluing the neck
-carving the tansition between body and neck.
-cavities covers (electronic and batteries)
-lots of sanding
-lots of sanding (again)
-and last but not least finish!
 
#23
Here are the pictures I promised:

First this is I how cut my scarf joints: I simply trace it out and chop it up with a standard saw (albeit one of good quality). I draw two lines 5mm apart, to make it easier to track my cut.

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After that I stack the two pieces and shoot the joint with my handplane.

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It would be easier to stack them the other way around, but this way I can see the line where the nut will be and make sure I keep that perpendicular to the neck centerline.
You can also see that my saw had a bent tooth! I've since fixed that. Those scars did give me a little more work but it still was a quick job shooting that joint.

The glueup is done with Titebond original. I start with a test fit and then drill for centering nails. These keep the pieces from sliding out of alignment when clamping. The glue makes it a very slippery business without this precaution.

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When the glue is dry I clean up the face with the handplane and glue my veneer: a bookmatched curly maple face (1.5mm thick, from an offcut of the top) and a contrasting dyed maple veneer (same as used in the body).

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The headstock is brought down to the desired thickness (15mm including the veneers) using the router on rails again. I then carve the headstock side of the volute, with a gouge followed with a sanding drum.

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You can see the neck is already carved in this picture, A "beauty mark" appeared on the treble side of the neck, wood is a natural product!

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The scarf joint is quite discreet so Flo and I decided to keep the lovely neck wood visible on the back of the headstock (on which I would usually glue a dark veneer).

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After routing for the trussrod with the parallel guide, the fingerboard is glued in place. It then serves as a template to route out the neck with a flush-trim bit (after the excess wood is sawed off). It's a spiral bit and it doesn't produce any tear-out!

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The neck is carved. The first step is done with the router again. I used a U-shaped jig in which I place the neck on blocks that allow me to route the neck to its tapered thickness.
Then in comes the Dragon rasp! I bought it for this project, and it's worth the price. It's really fast. I then followed with a spokeshave (bought on Ebay, following the wise advice provided on this very forum!), it's a very nice tool. After some careful sharpening it takes nice shavings of curly maple without any tear-out.

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The transition part is carved using a gouge, it will be refined after the neck is glued in.
For carving, I followed some cardboard templates I made off Flo's Fodera's neck. The profile is the same except that there's some wood in the non-cutaway portion!! The carving still allows a normal playing position almost up to the end of the neck. Of course we will double-check the playability before finishing...
 
#25
I use a cast iron plane Stanley style, #4 I think. The surface is more than 20cm long when I shoot the joint, I find it's plenty of support. When the sawn surface is clean, there's very little wood to remove. I check regularly with a small ruler and my angle gauge that I keep the joint flat and where I want it.
Also it's important to press down on the front handle when you start the stroke and press down on the rear handle when you finish. This is to make sure you don't round off the surface. I'm sure you're already aware of this.
 
#26
Learn something new every day. I never really learned how to use a hand plane properly, so that is good to know. I've only recently started to use them for jointing... or in my case "attempting" to joint. =p I'll have to practice that on some scrap boards. Thanks =)
 

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