I'm building a CBG with a reinforced neck. I routed a channel down the neck and used epoxy to put a square steel tube inside, and I plan to glue a fingerboard over it. Because I'm a bit clumsy, epoxy got all over the neck, and after it cured, I used a Dremel with a sanding attachment to remove the excess epoxy. But now the sanded surface is a little uneven. This picture shows the worst spot, and the rest is less visibly uneven, but if I run my finger over it, I can feel a slight ripple. When I dry fit the fingerboard, the largest gaps are roughly 1/32" wide. My question is, should I try to smooth the surface out before gluing the fingerboard on, or is it close enough to go ahead and glue it? And if I should smooth it out, how should I go about doing that? Thanks!
You need to be a member of Cigar Box Nation to add comments!
Replies
A related idea, glue some side rails to the neck like shane showed in one of his videos, he makes the neck 3x wide around the point where the pickup is cut in, so its like a pocket instead of a thin spot.
For your future builds: to get a perfectly level neck or fretboard, check first that your work surface is really level before attaching a sanding belt; another solution is attaching the sanding belt with two wedges to a 2" to 0.75" or so aluminum or steel profile: here a short one which fits into the photo, long wedges for demonstration only:
I've been working on the neck for the last few days, and there's good news and bad news. The good news is that I was able to glue the fretboard on without incident. I was able to fill in the gaps using the glue-and-sand method that several of you recommended (thanks again for that tip!). The bad news is that I broke the neck. I realized that the pickup notch wasn't deep enough, so I cut an extra 1/4" or so out. I then realized that, since the lead wires from the pickup (a C.B. Gitty Electric Delta) emerge from the edge of the bottom plate of the bobbin, I would need to cut a little bit more out from one edge of the notch. Because, as previously mentioned, I'm a bit clumsy, I cut too deep. I realized that it may be weakened, so I tried to flex it a little to assess its strength, and that's when it broke. The wood at the bottom of the notch came unglued from the backstrap beneath it, and broke at the spot where I had cut too deep. So, I took the pieces to Lowe's, and asked the guy there what he thought. It turned out that he was also a musician, and he suggested re-gluing it, drilling two holes through the weak spot, and putting bolts through the holes. I'm also going to partially fill in the extra notch with wood putty, since it was too deep anyway. I've already re-glued it, and tomorrow I'll put in the bolts and the wood putty, and hopefully get the whole thing assembled and playing. The box is just about ready, and I've got a bridge and nut picked out.
Sorry for the lengthy post, but thanks for bearing with me. I'll post a couple pictures of the repaired neck, and of the finished guitar, as soon as I'm able to.
I could see for the way you'd glued on the "backstrap" that there wasn't enough overlap to do the job. It needed to extend up the neck about 2 inches inches past the pickup notch if it is to take any actual load. Putting bolts thru the weak spot will do nothing, and may actually make it worse - the while thing is effectively going to "hinge" on that really thin part at the edge of the pickup notch, where there is no backstrap reinforcement behind it. As a general principle, the thinnest part of the neckstick inside the box should be no thinner than the main part of the neck itself, and you need a decent backstrap/heel overlap of 1 1/2 - 2 inches from the edge of any deep notches to enable the glue joint to do its job. Tough job to learn from, but onwards and upwards.
Do you think it would help if I were to glue and/or mechanically fasten another piece of 1x2 onto the neck, so as to effectively extend the backstrap? Also, I should clarify that the spot where the cut was deepest, and where the upper 1x2 broke, was on the lower corner of the notch, i.e. in the third photo above, the left side of the notch is where the extra cut was. I don't know if that changes anything, but I figured it might be worth mentioning.
Just glueing on a little block to extend the back strap will have no structural benefit at all, you need a continuous piece of wood to extend right across that weak spot. Bite the bullet, do it right and saw or plane off what you've got and glue a new piece that extends up the neck a couple of inches.
Even better would be to heat and soften the backstrap joint, remove the old back strap and replace it with a new one going a couple of inches beyond the notch, generally backstraps protude beyond the box and can be rounded or shaped like a heel on a conventional guitar if you like
Don't bother with the putty Mark, it will add no strength, and possibly shrink and fall out to rattle inside the box, if you feel the need to compensate the removed material, just add a strip of wood or even better aluminium along each side, screwed and glued it should compensate easily, as it is out of sight, i'd use aluminium and make it 3-4 times longer than your notch
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next