Making the Fretboard & Neck

Hey everyone, long time no see! Sorry for the delay in updates, but I wanted to give you a full play by play on what I’ve been doing thus far; making the neck and fretboard. It’s really important that you get these things right, since this can make or break the guitar. So without further explanation let’s get started!

*Centerline & double sided tape

(If you haven’t read my previous blog, you can check it out *HERE)

(To check out Brian and Hawkins Guitar School Click *HERE)

“Making the Fretboard

Brian has a lot of awesome fretboard blanks stored up, and for my fretboard we chose a beautiful piece of Madagascar Rosewood! Madagascar rosewood trees don’t grow very thick, but they are loved for their figure, often compared to the rare and pricey Brazilian Rosewood; people often use them for the back and sides, but because of their thickness builders have to put together 3 and often 4 piece backs! Non-the-less, they are beautiful, and perfect for fretboards!

We began by drawing out our center-line, and using a template we traced out our fretboard. I chose a 25.4 scale length for the neck (scale length is the measurement from the edge nut to the saddle). After this, we placed double sided tape on the back of the board, so it wouldn't move on the metal plate of the next jig (*see first pic for example).

*Fretboard Template

We then took it over to Brians “fretting’ machine, which is a really cool jig, already set up with a saw in the medal, and medal piece with notches to place your board under, so you can make your cut straight. The notches make it so everything is aligned and exactly in the right place. You have to make sure you put even pressure on the board and medal piece as you move it past the blade to make the cut, so nothing bumps or goes out of place. We placed the board on the jig, sticky side down, and made our runs.

*Fretting Jig

*Thickness sander

*Routing jig

After this we took it over to the thickness sander and brought it down some. Before bringing it down further, we made a couple of cuts with the Japanese saw to make room for where the nut would be placed on the neck. We then used a routing machine connected to a really cool moveable jig to bring the thickness all the way down

to where we wanted it.

When the fretboard was at the desired thickness I drew another centerline, and marked the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 12th, 15th, 17th, 19th, and 22nd frets where the dot markers were going to be. When they were sufficiently marked, I got to take it over to the drill press and drilled the holes using the right bit. I then marked where the side markers would go (which were parallel with the fret markers). After doing this, using a hand drill I made my holes, making sure it didn’t go too deep. I messed one hole up, but with a little sawdust and glue it was as good as new.

*Top left: drill press, Top right: side markers, Bottom: Fret dots

Brian showed me how to put the markers in and then gave me the abalone dots and a plastic stick piece for the fret dots and side markers to take home along with some glue and sandpaper.

The process was similar to a lot I had already done. I took it home, put in the side markers, glued, scraped, and sanded them down. I then decided to do put in the fret dots… You use a rubber hammer to put them in, then glue, and finally bring them down with a scraper and sandpaper. However, I rushed it, and they ended up being hammered in crooked. Thankfully I didn’t glue the fret dots in, and Brian (with a few laughs), fixed it easily. When the fret dots were glued in I used a great little file first instead of the scraper to get them down to size. This was a great tool! I then scraped and sanded them down until everything was nice and smooth.

*Sanded down fret dots

“Making the Neck”

Now, in Brian’s class we make the neck from scratch, a lot of people, and mostly all schools, don’t do this. Even some builders’ pre buy their necks because it’s a whole other skill level. Because of this, Brian does most of it, while his students watch, doing some small sanding in between. His necks are roughly cut to shape into a “neck like” piece already, so after he picked out one out (which was solid mahogany), he used the joiner to make everything smooth. He then made some marks, to mark out where the nut would be, after this he then sanded it down a little bit. He then made sure the neck would be at exactly the right angle when we attached the neck to the body, and it ended up being perfect!

*From left ro right: Joiner, Marking the nut, Sanding, Measuring the angle

Next, we prepared for the truss rod. The truss rod is the piece that allows you to adjust the neck of a guitar by bringing relief or tightening it. This allows for you to raise or lower your strings, and is what is known in the guitar world as your “action”. A truss rod is used on bolt on necks, and since Brian uses a hybrid system, he uses a truss rod.

*Trus rod glued in after routing

He routed out the area using a jig that contained a saw to make the cut where the truss rod would go. When it was cut we placed the truss rod in place and glued it in. We put some small pieces of wood in between for a tight fit, and a little piece on top to make everything smooth and even for when we would glue the fretboard onto the top of it.

*Truss rod complete w/wood strip

I don’t have the time or the knowledge to tell you every little adjustment and every part of planning that Brian did along the way; but a lot goes into making a neck, just like in every part of guitar building!

He used the band saw and belt sander next to shape and smooth out the neck...

*Gluing the fretboard and neck together

We then glued the fretboard to the neck, and clamped it down to glue for a few days.

I came to find out through this process that despite the beauty of the figure of any given fretboard, the theory of fretboards bettering sound through the tonal properties of the wood is highly unlikely. This is because of the layer of glue you put between it and the neck, which would prohibit most sound. Like everything however, it would affect the sound if you didn’t make it just right with the fretboard and scale; playability is crucial.

*Using the thickness sander on headstock

When I came back Brian sanding down the headstock on a belt sander he’d built, then we began to prep everything for neck shaping.

“Shaping the Neck"

*Shaping the neck with a spokeshave

We used a few things to shape the neck, but the coolest of all of them was the big spokeshave! I used a smaller spokeshave to shape my braces (*click HERE to view that post), but this one worked a bit more like a potato peeler and you could take larger amounts off. I actually was able to do a little bit of this, just to get the feel of it. I love using the hand tools the most now! Brian worked on the neck until it was roughly the thickness I wanted it at. When that was done, Brian used a template to draw on the shape of the heel. He then cut it out.

*Marking the heel with a template

I took the neck home to do final sanding on it. This is a crucial part, because you need to get it the way you want it to feel when playing, all the while making sure everything is smooth; so like most sanding we started with a rougher grit and moved to lesser and lesser grits until everything was smooth. I slacked off a bit on my homework that week, so I ended up doing the rest at his house under what Brian would call his “stupervision”.

*Shaped and sanded neck

There’s so much more I could go into; mistakes, redoes, complete redoes, and small adjustments we had to make along the way, but it would just be repetitive to what I’ve already covered. The most important thing is that the neck is now smooth, shaped and sanded to my likeness!

*Front view of neck

Next time we’ll be making the heel cap and head plate, and doing final things on the headstock (like tuners, etc.). Who knows, you might even get to see a pre-finish video of the guitar being played!

Speaking of a pre-finish video, I got to do a demo of Brians new Parlor guitar! This thing is so sweet, and an astonishing full sound for a parlor. It has a much deeper end than I have ever heard on such a small guitar. Here’s the video, remember, this is a pre-finish video, so the guitar will later have a beautiful shine to it!

*Click HERE to view more details on this parlor.

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If you want to find out more about Brian and his guitars, than click HERE for his website, or HERE to “like’ his Facebook page!

Later days,

~Daniel

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