Over the Christmas break, my dad (Pete) and I made a nice little CBG out of a big box. It's a LOUD through-neck four string, 25 inch scale with a tapered neck, four-barrel carburetor, power-matic transmission and a cold six-pack built in (just kidding about those last few). The neck is made from 3 oak boards glued together to make one deep board, then carved out to include one of those nice-feeling knobby protrusions on the back of the neck behind the nut area like on my wonderful Gibson ES Artist or some banjos. The neck is tapered and spaced to be as close as I could make it to my beloved Larrivee D-19, only on a 4-string scale. I bought a pre-slotted rosewood fretboard from StewMac and installed frets I got from CB Gitty. I "carved" the saddle with a belt sander. One of the reasons I wanted to make a CBG at my dad's is that between he and his neighbor they have tons of great tools. I also got a lot of great advice from Jim Mitchell of CigarcityCBGs(.com), from whom I got a CBG for Christmas for my brother, who is pleased as peaches about that, and so am I. We had fun playing these things together. I sure learned a lot working on this thing, and learned a lot about what I need to learn, and it's still not finished. The nut and bridge are way too high (made to be finished later when I learn what I'm doing a bit better) and I think it may need a sound post like in a violin and perhaps some other internal bracing to keep the thin top from caving in under the pressure from the strings. I want to keep any bracing to a minimum because the thing sounds great and I don't want to mess that up.
Gutbucketeer, I made the neck taper by stealing the measurements from my Larivee D-19's center 4 strings, then adding the distance from the outer strings and the edge of the fretboard on the Larivee (1/8", as I recall). Then my dad and I cut it out using a band saw, after we'd glued on the fretboard (which I bought from StewMac). It really wasn't that hard. Thanks, bandsaw.
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