Fretboard is here!!!!!!!!!!

Santa apparently disguised his sleigh as a UPS truck and fly up here from L.A. on a special trip. The Fretboard arrived at about 10:20. Here are pictures of the inlays as well as the band logo on the headstock overlay.

There is however another slight problem. Fretboards on classical guitars are flat across their width, but on steel string guitars they have a radius of 16 feet. The fretboard stock I had dropshipped from LMI was supposed to be radiused, but this one is flat. That means I'll have to radius it myself and that's a lot of sanding. and I'm hoping it doesn't blow through the pearl inlays as it does deep on the edges....

Good News....

I just stepped out of the barn to check tracking status on the fretboard and this is what I got (see picture). So the package is on the ground in SLO county and on it's way. Maybe it'll be here early today? We can only hope....

In transit... more DELAYS

Today I was hoping have good pictures of the neck and fretboard being assembled. Yesterday the inlaid fretboard was shipped to me from the CNC guy in Seattle, and I paid for guaranteed overnight delivery. However this morning the shipping status showed it sitting in Ontario, Ca (that's east L.A.) and scheduled for a Monday delivery.

I called UPS and they claimed that the package was received an hour and a half after the 4 pm deadline to make that overnight schedule (they still charged full rate though - shouldn't that be illegal?). I know for a fact they shipped it around 2 pm.....

I told UPS the nature of this project and that if they wanted to stay on Santa's nice list and not let down our band kids, they should find a way to get me the package today. They are now promising me a 7pm delivery today. We shall see.

So hopefully tomorrow, we're making good progress. I'll spend the day prepping all my jigs, etc so I can move post haste tomorrow.

Fitting the pickguard...

Here you can see how the curves don't quite match.

 On most guitars, the plastic pickguard is placed in such a way that it covers part of the rosette, but I don't like to do that after putting so much work into custom inlays. So yesterday I modified the fit of the pickguard so it would perfectly match the outside diameter of my rosette. As purchased, this one had a slightly smaller diameter for the cutout, so there wasn't much to remove. But I wanted it perfect, so I made a quick router template using a circle cutting jig on the dremel tool. This gave me a nice smooth template surface on the curve. Then I used a flush trim bit in my Festool trim router. The bearing followed the template contour and cut a perfect radius. To secure the pickguard to the template, I used double back carpet tape, which is the same way it will be attached to the guitar (so it can be removed if need be). More pictures below:

Template finished, pickguard secured with tape

Pickguard has been cut now and matches perfectly.

Here it is in place on the guitar. Follows the rosette very tight! I'm using my 2" T-Square rule as a stand in for the fretboard edge.

Final Design for Fretboard - REVEALED!

The design of the fretboard and headstock inlays is now complete and above is a rendering of what it will look like. You'll probably have to click on the file and open it to see it in full (something like "Open in a new window"). But in case you can't, the greyhound runs down (or should I say up?) the fretboard and after pausing to look back, he morphs into a musical beamed eighth note. Pretty cool, eh?

Kinda symbolic of our band kids. They enter as greyhounds, but they leave as musicians!

The machining will be done this week and with any luck, I'll be assembling it on the neck this weekend.

UPDATE: In my browsers at least you can just left click on the image to display it larger.

Another teaser...

The renderings for the CNC inlay are looking great and should be ready soon. Until then, here's a quick look at how the pickguard will look when installed. I don't like to put black plastic pickguards on nice guitars, so this one is made out of Sapelle wood, very thin.

A peek at the fretboard inlays...

I've been working with a custom inlay shop that specializes in CNC of shell inlays, and we've come up with a really cool idea for the fretmarkers. Everyone who's seen it agrees it's uber cool and must be done, but I'm going to keep the complete design a surprise. For now, you'll have to settle for a teaser. So here to the left is the conceptual art for the first three fret inlays (at frets 3, 5, and 7). Trust me, the markers are at 9, 12, and 15 are even better! They will be mother of pearl, and are silhouettes of a greyhound running down the fretboard (for those watching that aren't local, the greyhound is the AHS school mascot).

For now I'm waiting on the CNC shop to finish the inlays and send them back, so there probably won't be many updates until then since I must have this finished before I can complete the neck.