Looks to me like you should take the 1/32" off of the bass side of the nut.
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The Hossenfeffer II Build
- Thread starter Gilmourisgod
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OK, almost 8 hours of shop time later.....
Re-cutting binding ledges. Fear.
[Imgur]()
The old binding came off clean, love these Stewmac binding cutters.
Re-bound. This goes so much easier with a little experience under my belt.
Sanding the Envirotex Lite inlay resin flush with the board, sad to see that sparkle go, but it will be back....
Come full circle, now I still have to flush-cut the fingerboard to the neck beam, that's where it all went south last time. Have to rehearse each move many times so I don't repeat my mistake.
Re-cutting binding ledges. Fear.
[Imgur]()
The old binding came off clean, love these Stewmac binding cutters.
Re-bound. This goes so much easier with a little experience under my belt.
Sanding the Envirotex Lite inlay resin flush with the board, sad to see that sparkle go, but it will be back....
Come full circle, now I still have to flush-cut the fingerboard to the neck beam, that's where it all went south last time. Have to rehearse each move many times so I don't repeat my mistake.
Re-cut the fingerboard flush with neck beam, so that little eff-up cost me a full 8 hours of shop time, but no further incidents this time! Final nut width 1-19/32".
Started radiusing the board, then remembered I had to cut the binding slots first. D'oh! It took so long to build the Hossenfeffer I that i've forgotten some of the sequence. This shot demonstrates an easily overlooked weirdness of fingerboard radiusing: as the board narrows, the radius beam will take more wood off the nut end, because it's closer to radius center, and therefore higher. I spent a lot of time checking for board flatness along the string path, kinda got burned on that last time. Since the beam moves back and forth, the center of the board gets sanded more, so it got "dished" in the middle on my last build. I stopped every few minutes and sanded just the ends trying to even things out. I also went along the string paths with some 120 grit paper on the edge of my fret leveling beam, then blended with the radius beam. Any suggestion on how others handle this appreciated!
Working my way up through the grits, these are belt-sander belts double-stick taped to my 10" radius beam, 80 grit to establish the radius, 120 grit here. A long way to go until the sparkle inlays get transparent again. I'll probably have to polish up to 2000 or so to get them shiny gain.
Fingerboard bound with cream binding, melted binding shavings in acetone to create some color-matched spooge for the miter joints. Still have to scrape the binding flush and sand with finer grits, 320, 400, 600, 800, etc. The side dots are going to be tricky on this one. I can't penetrate the binding on the inner side, you'd see the black plastic rod poking through the side of the inlay pocket through the water-clear resin. Gonna do that one with my old fashioned hand-powered twist drill, and very slowly, too. I wonder if just drilling a divot and filling with black CA would be safer?
Started radiusing the board, then remembered I had to cut the binding slots first. D'oh! It took so long to build the Hossenfeffer I that i've forgotten some of the sequence. This shot demonstrates an easily overlooked weirdness of fingerboard radiusing: as the board narrows, the radius beam will take more wood off the nut end, because it's closer to radius center, and therefore higher. I spent a lot of time checking for board flatness along the string path, kinda got burned on that last time. Since the beam moves back and forth, the center of the board gets sanded more, so it got "dished" in the middle on my last build. I stopped every few minutes and sanded just the ends trying to even things out. I also went along the string paths with some 120 grit paper on the edge of my fret leveling beam, then blended with the radius beam. Any suggestion on how others handle this appreciated!
Working my way up through the grits, these are belt-sander belts double-stick taped to my 10" radius beam, 80 grit to establish the radius, 120 grit here. A long way to go until the sparkle inlays get transparent again. I'll probably have to polish up to 2000 or so to get them shiny gain.
Fingerboard bound with cream binding, melted binding shavings in acetone to create some color-matched spooge for the miter joints. Still have to scrape the binding flush and sand with finer grits, 320, 400, 600, 800, etc. The side dots are going to be tricky on this one. I can't penetrate the binding on the inner side, you'd see the black plastic rod poking through the side of the inlay pocket through the water-clear resin. Gonna do that one with my old fashioned hand-powered twist drill, and very slowly, too. I wonder if just drilling a divot and filling with black CA would be safer?
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I look at the initial establishment of the finger/fretboard radius kind of like crowning frets; mark with pencil all along the flat board (assuming it is of the same thickness and flat along its length) and sand with the radius block until there is just a thin line of pencil marks along the center, just a couple more strokes with the rough grit from there and then move on up in grits marking the the board with pencil every time... worked for me, I think 
Anybody out there used the black CA glue for side markers? The more I think about it, the more it seems like a safer way to do them without drilling through the binding, which is only .060" thick.
Either that or some acrylic black paint you can apply with a fine dropper or tiny brush.
BTW, this is an awsome build!
BTW, this is an awsome build!
- Apr 18, 2008
- 16,006
- 1
- 31,701
- Disclosures
- I'm highly opinionated and extremely self-assured
Sharpie dots on the binding, then lacquer over them! 
(Only half kidding)
(Only half kidding)
Heh. I’ve tried sharpie for other stuff, dries kinda purple-black. Mighta touched up a couple black guitars that way in my youth. Per usual, I’ll try on scrap binding to see if I have the fine motor skills to drill .030” deep holes in .060” thick plastic without effing it up. Might not be enough depth to get plastic rod to stick in, in which case it’s black CA glue or Bust.
- Apr 18, 2008
- 16,006
- 1
- 31,701
- Disclosures
- I'm highly opinionated and extremely self-assured
You could always use crushed black pearl, and then spend six weeks testing different epoxies and pouring methods....
You know me all too well, Sir Mullins. These niggling details must be agonized over! I’m running out of niggling time at an alarming rate with this May graduation deadline..
RIC actually drills through the binding, and into the fretboard, then taps in a short piece of colored black or white plastic rod for side markers.
That's what I did on the Hossenfeffer 1 after watching the factory tour video. What I didn't realize, was that the faux MOP inlays I used were just transparent enough that, if you look closely, you can faintly see the tip of the black plastic rod stock I used for side markers below the surface of the inlays! The third fret inlay has an oh-so-faint backwards numeral "3" visible through it. D'oh! My little secret, heh. I don't have that luxury on the sparkle inlays, the resin infill is literally water-clear, you will see everything happening under the resin. If I drilled the marker rods through the binding, you'd see them! The drill would also leave a transluscent "tunnel" through the resin, like screw holes through lucite.
Fingerboard binding scraped flush and sparkle inlays polished. I had a Micro-Mesh plastic polishing kit I never got around to using on another project, this is dry-sanded up to 12000 grit micro-mesh, not sure what that translates to in normal wet/dry paper. It still has a faint haze on the inlays, just a step below the real water clear transparency I'm looking for, not sure how to get there. The polishing kit came with a cream final rubbing compound, but I tried it on the fingerboard back, and it goes into the open Bubinga grain and leaves white residue in the pores. I think any cream polish or rubbing compound will do that. Maybe just buff it out with a lambs wool cover on my hand drill? Advice appreciated!
And heres how i resolved the headstock binding into the fingerboard.
And heres how i resolved the headstock binding into the fingerboard.
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Apologies, didn't mean to horn in on your action.
Toothbrush and vegetable oil is good for getting those white deposits out.
