Headstock Inlay Test

This inlay might get a little drawn out, mainly because I think it's going to take some time to do right. I wanted to do a logo of sorts on the headstock and came up with what you see below.
My uncles on the McCatty side had a saw sharpening business called McCatty Saw (at my Grandfathers house), and I remember the logo was the word McCatty with a swoosh of the y under and the word saw reversed out of the swoosh...

This logo is reminiscent of of that old logo, but with a little guitar flavor – more me.

I'm testing this inlay on a scrap of wood before I attempt at messing up the neck I've worked so hard on...

Carving the letters out with an exacto knife.

Done with cutting the wood, mostly – probably some more when the inlay peices are done.

Then I'm going to attempt to inlay shell material... Mother of pearl can be purchased for around $40 per sheet (plus shipping) for inlay material... I'm cheap, so I found these shells at Joe Ann fabric store for less than $4 and will be using these instead; same thing... just not in a sheet.

I almost bought a sheet of M.O.P. online – even had all forms filled out but just couldn't put the cc number in... Thought the price was just too much and knew there must be better sources. I'll do some test cutting tonight – word of warning: I've read that this stuff has carcanagentic properties... So if anyone trys to cut this stuff wear a mask.

Making the Bridge

Prior to making the bridge I had some more planing to do... I did this early Sunday but got tired – I still have a long ways to go... I should have had Joe cut the boards much thinner (again, hindsight 20/20)

A bridge is a device for supporting the strings and transmitting the vibration of those strings to the soundboard in order to transfer the sound to the surrounding air.

Didn't like the plans for the bridge as mapped out in the book so I strayed a bit in design here... Still about the same amount of wood and the main items are identical. Just the shape will be slightly different.

Made a template first.
Cut out a board blank from a chunk of ebony – notice how dark this wood is?

After measuring...
And sanding to thickness – the board is much lighter. It will darken after about two weeks.

Drawing the template on the blank.

Cutting the shape out.

Shape completed
Sanding the bridge on the sander to shape.

Thinning the ends, and rounding everything.

Sanding done, time to route the slot for the bone saddle. This needs to be done on a slight angle (1/4" over 3") to compensate for the different thicknesses of strings. If you made this straight the guitar would not have proper intonation (meaning a note on the 12th fret that should be the same as the note of the string played unfretted... just 1 octive higher would not match.)

I used a block that was cut .5" over 6" for a guide. I also used a little trick I learned on youtube: If you need a certain size router bit but don't have one, just flip a drill bit over and grind it (the back side) down on an angle. This makes an excellent router bit – just don't make too deep of a pass. This took about 6-10 passes.

I didn't drill the holes because I was tired and didn't want to mess it up. I'm going to drill these holes in a backwords V shape, instead of a straight line. But here is a completed Saddle minus string holes. I will include more angle shots of this once the string holes are done.

Soundboard Wood Ordered

The soundboard is the top of the guitar (the part of the body that has a hole). It is also the most important part of the guitar as far as wood choice, because most of the guitar's tone will come from piece. It is almost always a soft wood.

There are many choices of types of woods to choose from but most common that people use are Sitka Spruce, Engelmann Spruce, or Redwood. I've chose Sitka Spruce for the top of this guitar and will use the boards below. They are a book-matched pair...

This is a AAA grade board. The grading is based on many factors: color, stiffness, uniformity, grain count, sound response, run-out of grain, how close to quarter sawn, drying and so on...

I decided to try to order straight from the source (Alaska), to attempt to get the wood at a good price and also to deal with a company that deals directly with luthiers. I spoke with the owner on the phone and he was very helpful and I'm betting that I'll be very happy with the wood. I will put the company name and a link here if I end up being pleased with the wood. I was able to purchase 3 soundboards and bracewood for what it would cost me to purchase less than two from luthier catalogs – so I'm already pretty happy with that.

Another board I purchased AA Grade Sitka Spruce. Both of these boards are much higher grade wood that that used on my $400-450 (purchase price) charvel guitar.

A Grade Red Cedar the owner said that this was actually a higher grade board but downgraded due to color imperfections... I liked it (purchased this too) and may use it for a classical guitar after this steel stringed guitar build.

I also ordered enough brace-wood to do this guitar and maybe a couple additional guitars. Did I mention that I'm already thinking how I would do some things different on another guitar? Should I blog the second guitar?

I'm hoping the US Postal service moves quick. The place that the wood is coming from is on an island – so it needs to make a short plane-ride to the main-land, then on barge to Oregon, then through the mail... I may need to be patient – but it also means I'm kinda stuck 'til I get the wood.

Rounding off the neck – Almost Finished with the Neck

Above is a video of the almost completed guitar neck. Whenever I mention this blog to friends they often say "do you play?" Yes, I play – or at least try to play. The audio on this video is me playing my Charvel. The first song (part) is me copying a song I love and the second is a part of song I wrote about 4 years ago.

Back to the making...

Rounding over the neck with that awesome little plane.

I used this to remove as much wood as I could...

Then had to move to a wood rasp.

I was very pleased at how the headstock blended into the neck.

Bottom of neck after sanding.

Filing the Edge of the Frets

Here is a block that I routed at a 90° angle that would receive my file, I can run the wood over the frets.


Once sanded flush I routed another channel at a 25° angle to round over the sharp edges.




I did have one fret that wasn't seeded perfect (not shown) so I glued and clamped the fret and that fixed the problem. However it really cut into the amount of work I could get done.

Removing the extra wood on the side of the neck. I'm using this cute little Stanley file (one of many) that Creig purchase at a yard or estate sale. Thanks for letting me use all these planes!


Sides mostly planed off. Will start rounding the back off soon.

Installing the Fretwire

As I mentioned before the ground down diagonal pliers wouldn't cut the tang of the fretwire the tip of these just deformed and are now in the shape of a "v".

So I got these end cutting pliers and ground down the end of these flush. They were not quite flush.

Cutting part of the tang off.
Now you can see why it was important to do so. This will look nice because you won't see any kerf-marks or fret wire showing through the side of the fret-board because of this white maple binding. I had to measure and cut each fret individually – this took a while.

Putting glue on the frets. I used white glue for this – making re-fretting possible in the future. I also used the Dremel a bit to clean up what the end-cutting-pliers left behind.

Placing each fret in it's place.

Then I used the drill press and a dowel to seed the fret-wire in the kerf. I did make a shaped block for this process but I saw another luthier using this technique above and it just seemed easier. Plus when the dowel started to deform I was able to just put sandpaper under it and turn the drill press on to make a new surface – so simple!

More of the same, you can see the glue coming out on the bottom photo. I cleaned that up with a wet rag and then dried it right away with another dry rag.

Almost there!
Done and now gluing the fret-board onto the neck. If I had this to do again I would have glued the fret-board on first, then install the frets... My hind-sight is 20/20.

Done with the install! Still have some filing to do and some shaping of the underside – maybe tonight.

Update: I did finally purchase the book and returned the library's copy back to them... in the drop box – I just couldn't look them in the eye. I'm sure I have some late fees waiting for me!

A Radius on the Fret-Board

The last thing to do to the fretboard before putting the frets wire on is to radius the top. This is done mostly for comfort of barring chords and is common among steal string guitars but not classical (not sure why). Below is a photo of the flat fingerboard (the camera lens added a slight bend but it is indeed flat).

If you remember the radiused sanding block from a previous blog post... well here it is in action below.

A note on sandpaper: There is the regular stuff that I had always purchased that is well under a dollar per sheet. And there is a more expensive, cloth variety that is almost two bucks a sheet... The cloth is worth every penny – cuts better and for a MUCH longer period of time... as a matter of fact when I was done sanding, this the sheet seemed to be as good as new.

Notice the curve? That was after a lot of sanding. I had to clean up piles of sawdust about 5 time during this process.


Started with 80 grit then 120 and finished with 220. I will polish the whole thing with steel wool after the frets are installed. Also the ebony wood will become darker once exposed to the light. Notice the difference in color between this photo and the top photo.

Cleaning dust out of the kerf with an Exacto.

I was ready to install the fret wire but my wire snips that I ground flush (the post prior) didn't work! I don't know if I allowed the tip to get too hot (I don't think so because I quenched often) or if I ground down too thin... I did try grinding the tang off the edges of the fretwire with a Dremel, but I didn't like the results of that approach either. But regardless it's back to the drawing board to find a solution. The tool Stewart Mac sells is $30 – but I'm hoping to find a much cheaper solution at the hardware store tonight.