Great advice, Simon. Thanks.
Great advice, Simon. Thanks.
I think I'm going to hold on to it and follow the steps you have given. It's my first build and it was always going to be a learning piece anyway. Hopefully I can do your sound advice justice and have a nice playing guitar by the end of it.
One small suggestion that works for me. When doing accurate stuff like neck pocket/heel reshaping, even with a flat block I find it awfully difficult to keep the surface truly flat with sandpaper. It has a frustrating tendency to end up with a curved surface. What I find easier is to use a new Stanley knife blade, held vertical, as a scraper. And you can press down harder on one side than the other if you need to scrape more on that side.
Also, do you know the bright light trick? Hold a steel rule or square against the surface at 90degrees and look along the surface at a bright light. High spots will be dark and low spots show up brights you can scrape it far more level than you could ever possibly measure.
Build #1, failed solid body 6 string using neck from a scrapped acoustic (45+ odd years ago as a teenager!)
Build #2, ugly parlour semi with scratch built body and ex Peavey neck
Build #3, Appalachian Dulcimer from EMS kit
Build #4, pre-owned PB ESB-4
Build #5, Lockdown Mandolin
Build #6, Sixty six body for Squier
Build #7, Mini Midi Bass
Good advice Jim, thanks.