Shaping the neck

20210206
After the fingerboard is glued, I began to shape the neck in preparation for gluing it to the body.
First I shape the 2 part at the head to neck joint curving the joint.
I use saw and chisel to remove the main bulk of the waste then shape the curve with file and sandpaper.
Following that, I saw away the excess neck at the 2 sides of the fingerboard.
Then i plane it back to the fingerboard width.
Next I shape the neck to the correct thickness at the head part and the head neck joint at the back of the head.

Shaping the head neck part.

Sand to shape

Removing neck excess at the 2 sides of fingerboard

Plane the width back to the size of the fingerboard

Shaping the neck near the 1st fret region.

A preview of the neck

Finished sanding the neck

Another preview

Preparing the Fingerboard

20210116
Next I prepared the fingerboard.
I had on hand a pre-slotted ebony fingerboard which I use for this project.
I marked the centre line and the width at the nut end and the width at the 12th fret.
The fingerboard is just nice for the taper spread at the 19th / 20th fret end,
After that I saw away some waste using my saw, and then started to shoot the fingerboard square and to the marked width.

After shooting to size, I taper the bottom end at the bass sides.
I mark the part to plane more using pencil lines so that I wont remove from the wrong side.
The thickness is 7mm at treble side and 6mm at bass side.
The forward angle can be adjusted at the neck portion when the neck is glued to the body.
So the finger board can stay at teh same thickness through out.

Marking and sawing away the waste

Shooting the fingerboard to size

Fingerboard done ready to be glued.

20210130
The fingerboard is then glued next.
20210131
After gluing, I discovered that the alignment has shifted.
Apparently the alignment pin is not inserted deep enough.
So I proceed to remove the fingerboard
I use iron to heat up the fingerboard.
Not having frets on makes it easy to apply the heat directly to the fingerboard.
After that I inserted the palette knife to separte the glue seam.

Gluing the fingerboard

After checking that alignment has shifted, proceed to remove the fingerboard.
Heating up the fingerboard

Fingerboard removed

20210203
Next the fingerboard is scraped clean to remove the glue remnants of the 2 surface. After that the fingerboard is reglued.

Glue remnants scraped clean.

Applying glue to the surface

Glued and making sure this time the pin is aligned correctly.

Fingerboard all aligned correctly.