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Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
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The great news is that the figuring in the ebony is still there after radiusing - you can see the waves of the grain along the edge so it really is all the way through and up the fretboard.
The less good news is that it is very brittle - much more so than ebony boards I've used in the past. I've had to slim the board as much as I dare to get past some edge chips but as for fretting...well it just isn't going to work with my preferred method of 'ribbon of titebond, hammer one side, hammer the other side, hammer middle, clamp radius block on'.
Pressed in and clamped until the titebond has set enough to hold them secure is the only way.
Trouble is I don't have a fret press system or caul.
Ah....but what I do have is the radius block!
This works absolutely fine, but it's going to be slow - min of 15mins per fret...
Still - it's raining outside so what else would I do on a Sunday
Only another 14 to go
Note that I have the bridge fitted and a couple of old strings in - this is no time for nasty alignment surprises!
I've de-tanged both ends of the fretwire and rounded and positioned the bass side - the treble side overhang will be clipped and the ends rounded once the timbermate is fully hardened. The method I ended up using is very slow but seems to be producing a decent finished result so far
The fret-ends were pre-dressed on the bass side and now trimmed on the treble side ready for those to be rounded too. I'm going spherical ends to give maximum usable playing width.
Tuners are on order - I won't drill for them until I have them physically in my sticky mitts!
After that there are just two or three small jobs to do before I can start the final sand and finishing process. Probably be able to start that on Wednesday
Looking good mate!
It's not impatience - there's a functional reason.
Here's how it's looking. For the tuners, I mixed and matched two sets of the new Axesrus thumblock tuners (I'll report back later...initial impression is that they are VERY good) to get a black/gold look to match the bridge:
Don't panic - the headstock plate's not finished yet , but this gives a closer view of the mix
So why might I be stringing up later?
I mentioned above that the figured ebony has turned out to be a little brittle and, to avoid chips at the edges, the neck is quite slim. This is generally not an issue....but it depends on your playing style. What I want to avoid - because @impmann uses pull off's quite a lot and has had issues with some necks of the 'strat' problem of the string dropping off the edge - is just that...the string dropping off the edge. So the easiest way of finding out is to pop a set of strings on and try it.
And what if it is an issue? Then it's something that sounds drastic but actually, at this stage, isn't so bad (and in someways leads to a 'better' job in the end) - defretting, adding a binding to the sides of the fretboard and refretting with a wider fret over-run. Because the neck is still straight edged at the moment, the bottom of the binding would be just scraped flush as part of the finish profile shaping.
I'm sort of tempted to do that anyway...
Oh...and what will I do with the other tuner parts? Put them onto my sister build albeit with black body and gold knobs
To be honest. I'd pretty much decided to defret and add binding in any case....
The good news is that in pretty much all other respects, it's absolutely fine
It even INTONATES!!!! All that measuring and checking and measuring and checking obviously helped...
I heated each one up with a soldering iron and then used one of the special ground-end fret pullers to ease each out. Two bits of good news, in a way - First, they were very well seated! Second is that they've come out with quite modest chipping and none beyond the fret line.
I have some binding strips on the way and, in the meantime, will start on finishing off the headstock and control chamber.
Next target is the trussrod cover
I've gone for wenge which will tone in with the other demarcation strips.
Pity I couldn't have got 22 clamps in - it would have saved me having to refret With the screw threads of the clamps, @impmann would even have been able to have individual string spacings for each fret!