U.S. Guitar Kits Cutaway User Manual download pdf (Page 28)

stewmac.com

When the cheeks ﬁt accurately and look good on both sides,

ﬁt a piece of the supplied shim stock into the loose side of

the dovetail. (A bolt-on neck doesn’t require a shim, and is

not intended to ﬁt tightly like the dovetail.) Hold the dovetail

neck into the mortise and rock the heel. It will most likely

be looser at either the top or bottom of the cheeks. File the

Tightening the dovetail joint

shim stock in a wedge-shape to ﬁll the gap. You may need

to make more than one shim to get it right. When the shim

is ﬁt properly. The dovetail will pull the cheeks in tightly and

the neck will stay in the body on its own.

Now that the neck is ﬁtted, it’s time to install the remaining

frets in the fretboard extension. On your workboard, butt

the tenon against the edge of something sturdy and tall

enough to meet the underside of the fretboard extension

(we used a brick). The entire neck and fretboard must be sup-

ported when you hammer to avoid breaking the fretboard

extension. Nip the fret ends, ﬁle them ﬂush, and bevel them

as you did earlier; keep the extension supported here, too.

Installing the last frets

cheek. Cut in the direction of the top edges. A ﬁnal light,

downward pull of the sandpaper strip will clean up any

marks left by the chisel.

from side to side. If you need to remove a lot of wood, make

two or three passes before changing to the other cheek. The

ﬁt will change rapidly, so check your progress frequently.

A small ledge of unsanded wood will remain on the bottom

of the heel between the sanded cheeks. Either “pull-sand” it

with the strip, or use a sharp chisel to remove it.

Wood is seldom removed from the top of the heel, but if

the neck block was mistakenly tipped forward when glued

in place, the neck may be “overset” too far away from the

body. In this case, the straightedge laid on the fretboard will

extend above the bridge. Removing wood from the top of

the heel on both the treble and bass sides equally will bring

the neck up so the straightedge comes down to the top of

the bridge (pictured).

Use the formula in “Understanding neck angle geometry” to

determine how much wood to remove. With a sharp pencil

and a straightedge, mark the area to be chiseled away in a

straight line from the top of the heel to the zero point at the

bottom. Repeat this line on the opposite side.

The sandpaper strip described above won’t work here

because the fretboard is in the way, so you’ll need to use

a sharp chisel to remove the long taper of wood on each

Neck adjustment: tilt the neck up

Remove from shaded area

Remove

wood here

Top

view

Bolt-on

neck

Dovetail

neck

Leave edges intact

Removing wood from the top

edge tips the neck upward

Removing wood at the bottom

edge tips the neck back

Top

view

Remove

wood here

1 2 ... 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 ... 39 40

Comments to this Manuals

No comments

U.S. Guitar Kits Cutaway User Manual Page 28

Comments to this Manuals

Related products and manuals for Guitars U.S. Guitar Kits Cutaway