MIMF

Carved and installed the bone nut and slotted for the strings (0.325" string spacing). Installed the Gotoh 510 tuning machines - these are really good machines! Neck meets the body again! Two screws with bellville washers are installed through the neck block from the inside of the body to lock ...

Five days later...
We use automotive rubbing and polishing compounds with a 6" buffer to "finish the finish" A few hours work and:

After 5 days curing, the finish can be level sanded with 320, 400 and 600 grit dry, then wet sanded with 1200 and 2000 grit. The goal is to create a level and smooth satin finish. D116 - Sanded to 2000g.jpg D118 - Before rubbing out.jpg Then it hangs another 5 days to cure some more. (So hard to wai...

The finish is General Finishes EnduroVar waterborne urethane varnish, applied with a foam brush. We have a HVLP sprayer but have not taken the time and effort to figure out how to spray this finish. The schedule was: 1) 3 coats, wait 1 hour between. 2) Dry overnight, then dry sand with 400 grit. The...

Here is the sunburst dye before blending with alcohol. All using TransTint dyes in alcohol: Honey Amber for the entire body, then Vintage Maple from edges, followed with Medium Brown for the edges and waist areas. I have really limited experience with sunburst finishes like this. It's a challenge to...

Several hours of sanding completed. Wet with distilled water, wait overnight to dry, sand to 220, look for flaws and repeat two more times! Taped to expose the binding, then dyed with Honey Amber, sanded and dyed again. D110 - Taped for Dye and Finish on Binding.jpg Two coats of finish on the bindin...

The remaining dot markers are glued in where the alignment pins where and leveled. Ebony grain filler was applied to the head plate to close up some of the open grain of the walnut. D101 - Ready for final sanding.jpg After lots of shaping and sanding, the neck is basically completed. Now, some long ...

Under this forest of clamps is the fretboard glued to the neck. This is where the two pins really help with alignment. You can never have too many clamps!

The neck dovetail will be locked in place with two screws installed from the body interior. Drilled the holes though the neck block from the outside, then inserted the neck and marked the hole locations in the neck heel. ( The third hole is left over from the dovetail fixture). D099 - Dovetail screw...

Now on to the neck... Added a decorative walnut cap to the neck heel. D097 - Walnut heel cap.jpg A lot of work for only one picture... Installed a MC inlay in the headstock, assembled from tiny pieces of white binding. Tedious, but it looks cool. Realized later that for some reason I ended up with t...

Garden is doing well, and other projects completed, so now back to the Dobro build... Now is as good a time as any to install the soundposts. These are 1/2" and 1/4" poplar dowels. Lots of trial and error to fit these between the back braces and maple top ring. Glued in with gel superglue,...

Really looks like a dobro now! Next, lots of carving to complete the neck thickness profile, and drilling the headstock for the tuners. Also will inlay a MC logo. The neck will not be permanently attached until after the finish is completed.

Rough shaping the neck width and the headstock shape. D090 - Rough Shape Neck and Headstock Width.jpg We used two-way adjustable truss rods in the 8 previous guitar builds. The 5 layer lamination of the necks, combined with 0.300" thick fretboards, are really stable and strong. In each case the...

Some curly maple glued on to widen the headstock. Under this forest of clamps is a 1/8" thick walnut headplate.

Checking again that the neck and fretboard will all match the centerline of the body. D085 - Checking Body and Neck Centerline.jpg The final position of the fretboard is determined. Two of the pearloid position markers were not installed, and 1/16" holes were drilled through so that small brads...

The headstock needs a small extension. A section of the offcut from the neck shaft is ripped to 1/2", flipped around and glued to the neck shaft. Keeping the length long at this point helped with aligning the extension to the main shaft. Chopped the excess off after letting the glue set and san...

The neck tenon is carefully filed so that the neck drops into the body mortis to line up exactly at the level of the front plate, and to ensure that the neck shaft stays on the centerline. Neck tenon fitting completed.

The actual neck in the dovetail tenon fixture. The other nail biter in the process. D079 - Maple Neck in Tenon Fixture.jpg [I should probably sweep the floor before taking these photos ;-)) Another sled fixture to cut the headstock angle on the neck shaft. Made this new setup because a lower headsto...

Body clamped in the dovetail mortis fixture. This is really nerve wracking - mess up here and it is really hard to fix! D076 - Body in Mortis Fixture.jpg Success. The dovetail mortis came out really good. D077 - Completed Body Dovetail Mortis.jpg [Just noticed that you can also see the bookmatch of ...

Cutting the fretboard taper using a sled fixture on the table saw. D074 - Cutting Fretboard Taper.jpg Glued in small pearloid dot position markers in shallow holes with super glue. Bound the fretboard with the same curly maple/walnut purfling we used on the body (Titebond glue). Once the glue cured ...