After a long stretch away from guitar building I was able to get a lot done today. I have been sneaking in a few minutes here and there scraping and sanding Anna Beth’s guitar. The maple bindings were much easier to install, but were much harder to deal with after glued. Using wood glue instead of the cement used for the celluloid bindings proved to be hard to clean up. Ultimately, I had success with a cabinet scraper and a foam sanding block. I progressed from 120 grit, to 180, 220, 320, then finally steel wool on both guitar bodies.
I also glued the necks. The plans I am using from LMI are for a 25.4 scale length. I have 3 fingerboards that already have the frets cut a 25.5 scale. That means I have a little different measurements for the location of the 14th fret, which is where the neck will attach to the body. Thankfully, stewmac.com has a handy scale length calculator and using those measurements and the expected nut width and tenon length I was able to glue the neck. This involved a scarf joint at the headstock end and heel block on the body end. The heel block was made from the excess neck blank portion being cut into 3 pieces that were then stacked and glued in order. I used to glue boards that we made 20+ years ago when making the first guitar.
