ELECTRIC GUITAR PROJECT part 18

Previously, On ELECTRIC GUITAR PROJECT, we saw the crazed old man digging and hacking and chopping for what felt like hours, and for what? Who knows! Today the seemingly endless quest continues...

I have an irrational nagging worry concerning this guitar and if I don't do something about it, it'll bug me forever. When I made the pickup notch I separated the neck into 2 pieces inside the body. Technically it's not a thru-neck guitar anymore. I'm sure it's plenty strong as it is, in fact there's still more attachment the way it is than there would be with a bolt-on neck. Regardless of any of that sensibleness, my addled mind can not let it go and WILL NOT rest comfortably until I reinforce that neck, dangit! I know it's an unnecessary waste of time, but I can't NOT do it.

I'm going to drill 4 holes through the neck into the body, by way of the pickup notch, and glue dowels into the holes. That'll pin everything together pretty well. At least it'll satisfy me a little more.

Two holes get drilled on each side. One angles to the left and one to the right.

Then with the help of glue and a mallet, a dowel gets crammed in as deep as it'll go into each of the 4 holes.

After the glue dries I cut the extra dowel away with an X-Acto knife...

...And trim it off flush.
Okay, SHOO! Now I can relax and let it go.

While I had the hand drill plugged in I went ahead and drilled two holes for the shoulder strap buttons.

Here's something else which keeps bugging me. The walnut/maple lamination is nice looking in the body, but I hate the way it looks at the headstock. It disturbs the flow of the tapered headstock since the laminations are parallel. Also, look at the edge. Just look at it! ! You can see a big ugly, out of place, dark stripe of walnut breaking up the maple.

I got some scraps of mahogany and maple veneer and I'll attempt to cover the face and edge of the headstock. I'm gonna try to do a 2-color pattern too. I've never veneered anything before and I hope I'm not biting off more than I can chew. We shall see. . . next time, on ELECTRIC GUITAR PROJECT!


This is a size comparison of a dachshund with a little 2 1/2 year old Chinese demolition catastrophe machine.

She actually loves Lucy, but Lucy doesn't know it. Lucy just thinks MeiMei likes falling on her.
It's like a battle field for dogs. Lucy went in, grabbed some grub, and skeedaddled!

Pet...pet...pet... (POUND! POUND! POUND!)