Finishing the top and starting the neck

So, I continued to build my braces and glue them up. Each brace is a similar process, so I won't bore you with additional pictures and prose about what I am doing with the go deck. However, after a little time, we have the bracing all completed for the top. Parlor guitars, since they are very small, do not need a lot of bracing. To the right you can see the finished top. All it needs is final sanding and it will be ready to go.

Next, it is time to begin builiding the neck for my guitar. This guitar will feature a one-piece mahoganny neck with a "Spanish" heel. If you have ever played a Martin guitar, you know the type of heel that I am talking about.

The first thing to do is cut the piece down to specifications. You may be able to see the pencil marks on the wood to indicate what those specs are. There is no sense it taking a big hunk of mohaganny and wasting a whole bunch of the material. Additionally, by doing a few different things, we can strenghen the wood in order to allow it to withstand the extreme force from the strings.

One thing that usually adds strenght to the neck is using a scarf joint for the headstock. This is where we take careful measurements of the neck blank, cut the wood and the re-glue it so that it has an angle where the headstock will be. This helps to make the headstock more stable and also is the best transmitter of neck resonance to the body of the guitar. For this headstock, since it will be a slotted headstock, we chose to make the angle of the headstock 10 degress, which is less than that of a typical steel-string guitar.

Once the cut has been made, it is time to make the two pieces that we have ready for glue up. This is done by planning down both sides so that the pieces are flush when the are put together. If these pieces are not flush, then you will see a gap between the two pieces. Additionally, the stength of the neck will be comprimised.

Finally, it is time to glue up the head stock. The picture shows how we use a block of wood to force the two pieces together. This is a very important glue up, so we use a lot of clamping pressure to make sure that the two pieces are tightly fit. After a few minutes, we flip the neck over to view the other side. This is done so that we can make sure that the two pieces are firmly together.

We then let this join tack up and sit for at least an hour or so before we do anything else. This is one joint that we definitely do not want to comprimise, as it is very important to the integrity of the neck.