Day 4 and the pace picked up. Big day for potential screw-ups. Serious precision required to build a guitar neck that will actually play real notes. 95% chance of a major cock-up in which the guitar will play nothing but a series of a-tonal farts. Luckily, we have decided to focus on the positive and are going for the 5% where the strings actually sit above the fretboard and play real notes. The professor (any likeness to later photos?) gave us an education while we drank beer . .
Eric has decided for the easy way out for construction, but the hard way for playing. He has decided that his will be a fretless bass (think Mark King of Level 42 if your mind goes that far back!).
Lots of guitar terms that I have never really needed to understand when playing are becoming much more clear now. The truss rod (a piece of metal, not a command) was cut in steel and threaded at each end, and then bowed for tension. The front of the neck channelled delicately to get an adjustable and fixed nut inserted at either end. Then we fastened the truss rodd to these nuts and inserted in the channel, and covered with soft wood to avoid any metallic buzzing in the eventual instrument.
I have never really thought about it, but the strings on these guitars will have a tension of about 80 kilos (nearly 200 lbs) and all this pressure applies to the neck. The steel truss rod is in the middle of the neck to counteract this, with thew adjustable nut to bring the neck back into alignment against all this pressure. Some delicate channeling, routing, grouting, pouting and flouting (I didn't get all the real terms . . )
Jeez, I needed a feel cold ones just to combat the fear of getting this wrong. Get the truss rod wrong and you start the whole thing again! Here is Eric adjusting his truss . . .
Getting the exact measurements for the neck onto the wood was frustrating. Its bloody difficult getting distances to 0.5mm precision marked out on a grainy wood and ensuring the lines really are what you want. Once you cut it, you can't put it back on! The good news was that to choose my optimum neck widths I had to spend an hour playing various guitars to find which was best for my style and hands. I chose wine bottle width . . . .
It all seemed to work out, although after an excellent lunch of rose and red wines and some stunning pollo al horno with ginger, orange and apple, I had a little siesta in the hammock and waking up was hard . . . .
Back at the ranch, I decided to buy an old Harley to complement the new guitar . . .
In my spare time I routed (or is it 'rooted'?) the cavity for the electrics. Have to be careful to take account of further shaping on the front of the body which will cut away a lot of wood at the sides in flares. Dont want to end up with a hole in the front! But its starting to look like the real thing . . .
This island is famous for its lizards and pretty much all the local designs incorporate them. The lizards are all over the place in the shade, but they are pretty friendly but not very musical. Perhaps one of these will find their way in to the guitar design somehow . . . .
A few people have asked if the logo picture above is actually what I am trying to build. Its broadly the same model but my mental picture is more like this . . . .
