Day 5 - Fretting and the Neck

The day started with ripping apart the neck sandwich, which proved a little harder than expected due to over zealous glueing the night before.

We routed out the cavity to give access to the truss rods (for future adjustment) and then designed the covers . . . .

It was a much less humid day which suited us all, feeling a bit like the first day of September after the excesses of the past week . . .

We had a serious lecture on musical theory and string theory to prepare us for building the fretboard . . .

And we were reminded that the structure of stringed instruments is a set of approximations, i.e. its not a scientific progression, so various compromises have to made to get decent octaves.

We worked through our fifths, fourths, major and minor thirds until we disappeared up our own tremeloes . . .

We then reviewed how guitar bridges try to address some of the compromises . .

By then it was getting dark and heads were hurting . . .

But the show must go on, getting the fretboard convex with a 12 radius at the bridge end a 9 at the headstock. No mean feat . . .

And fretting commenced . . .



Frank was feeling the pressure . . .

The 'Beauty" is starting to take shape. Starting to think about a pickguard, pickups and controls too. Design thinking to be done . .

Now all of this work was punctuated by a fine wine fuelled lunch (so good in fact we completely missed our usual siesta!) and dinner. Woke up this morning to another beautiful day and we thought we would celebrate with a Formentera breakfast of enseimada and Fundador . . .

So off to Day 6 now. Yep, we work Saturdays . . .  But only a half day today and tomorrow off - It really does feel like being at school with the anticipation of the weekend!

Hasta!