DLP Mandolin - 7 - Working On The Neck

Over the past week or so I have continued working on the neck.  I want it to be set in place and glued into the body so the first ting to do was align the neck's centre line with the centre line on the body and mark out for the neck pocket and tenant slot.

As with most of my work at this stage I like to use hand tools where possible, as part of my apprenticeship!  So I carefully laid out the neck pocket and used a tenant saw to cut the edges of the slot to the required depth and then used a sharp chisel to carefully remove the rest of the material.

Once I was happy with the depth of the neck pocket I cut the tenant flush to the centre of the body as the top will be glued here for extra strength.

There is a question about the angle of the neck, I had assumed I would need to angle the neck slightly but I laid the neck out with the bridge and nut in place and used a straight edge to simulate the path of the strings and it became apparent that any angle would make the strings too low where the neck meets the body so I made the neck pocket flat.

I routed out the truss rod channel and also cut a groove into the tenant to accommodate the wires from the neck pickup.  I also sanded a slight taper into the head, not something I had done before but it is something that some manufacturers do and I liked the idea!

Next I moved onto the fret board.  I'm using mahogany again for this build, but I'm confident that a little glue in each slot will prevent the frets from pulling out and I cant imagine wear on the board been an issue for may years.

I mounted the fret board blank to a block of wood with double sided tape ensuring that one side was square to the centre line of the blank.  I was then able to use a set square to mark the position of each fret.  I also used the set square as a guide when cutting each fret slot.

I started each cut using the set square, then carried on by eye once the cut had been started down to just over 2mm depth.  I then trimmed the top and bottom of the blank and glued it to the neck been careful not to get any glue in the truss rod groove.

The truss rod could have been a little further back in the neck as the adjustment nut stands proud of the face of the head.  This can be easily corrected though with a veneer to compensate but I also ground a little from the adjustment nut before the fret board was glued on anyway.