Today I ripped the neck blank down the middle as it is big enough to make two Les Paul necks and was just too big to easily work with.
I could glue both blanks at the same time however I'm sure I will make some mistakes along the way so I will learn from the first neck and do the other neck later.
After cutting the original blank in half on my bench saw I then decided now would be a good time to cut the head to its final thickness. Once again I did this on the bench saw and then sanded all the glueing surfaces.
Now my first mistake has become apparent. The scarf joint should start under the edge of the neck by the nut not halfway down the neck! OK I will make a note of that for the next time! I intend to paint the neck a solid colour so it's not too important on this build.
Once everything is lined up and smooth I drilled two small holes beneath what will be the joint and tapped two small nails into them and then trimmed them so they shaft is just standing proud of the surface. I will use these to stop the joint sliding around when I glue up and also line up the two pieces in the correct position.
The two pieces are now clamped, I will keep them clamped up for a few hours and then look at glueing some 'ears' onto the headpiece.
I glued the 'ears' on one at a time this evening leaving the clamps on for a couple of hours to allow the one extension to dry before glueing the other one on.
Next job will be to sand everything smooth and trim the head extension. I will be using my own headstock design so I also need to make a template from my drawings.
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