ooh yes, sometimes things go wrong all the time.. The trick is to learn to fix the issues, if you do that correctly, everything is easy 🤣 

Posted by: @steveh

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Hi all! I hope everyone is well 🙂

Flippin’ eck! Ok, I know I’m trying a few new things out on this one (bound fretboard, bolt on neck, Floyd Rose), but you’re supposed to try new things to learn, right?

So, after several false starts with the binding, I’ve got a fretboard that’s ready for frets, so I turned my attention to the neck. All went well up to cutting out the neck. I did a nicer than usual (for me) job on the bandsaw, so out with the router to finish off. The first pass was ok, so i removed the patterns to cut a little deeper. OMG!! I think that the grub screw holding the collar on the router bit sits slightly proud of the bearing 🙁 It’s about now that I’m racking my brain trying to think of any gipsy elders who I may have offended recently …

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-- attachment is not available --

Any thoughts how I can make this ok, without it looking like a dog’s dinner? Or should I chalk it up to experience and start with another blank?

Any words of wisdom (or even commiserations 🙂 ) very welcome.

Thanks in advance

Steve

 

Got enough thickness to take the top of the neck down? Remember to include the fretboard thickness. Like if you want 21mm at the first and your board is 6mm then minimum neck thickness is 15mm and so on.

Check your bearing on the router bit is the correct size, I bought some bearings and bits seperately and ended up with this sort of issue as the bearings were slightly smaller.

Other thing is you maybe plunged to deep so the actual collet of the router hit the wood, also learnt that the hard way lol.

But yeh, don't panic, just assess the situation and figure out a fix. It happens to us all.

Posted by: @koendb

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ooh yes, sometimes things go wrong all the time.. The trick is to learn to fix the issues, if you do that correctly, everything is easy 🤣 

Thanks Koen - ever the source of sage advice 🤣 

Posted by: @nsj

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Posted by: @steveh

↑

Hi all! I hope everyone is well 🙂

Flippin’ eck! Ok, I know I’m trying a few new things out on this one (bound fretboard, bolt on neck, Floyd Rose), but you’re supposed to try new things to learn, right?

So, after several false starts with the binding, I’ve got a fretboard that’s ready for frets, so I turned my attention to the neck. All went well up to cutting out the neck. I did a nicer than usual (for me) job on the bandsaw, so out with the router to finish off. The first pass was ok, so i removed the patterns to cut a little deeper. OMG!! I think that the grub screw holding the collar on the router bit sits slightly proud of the bearing 🙁 It’s about now that I’m racking my brain trying to think of any gipsy elders who I may have offended recently …

-- attachment is not available --
-- attachment is not available --

Any thoughts how I can make this ok, without it looking like a dog’s dinner? Or should I chalk it up to experience and start with another blank?

Any words of wisdom (or even commiserations 🙂 ) very welcome.

Thanks in advance

Steve

 

 

Got enough thickness to take the top of the neck down? Remember to include the fretboard thickness. Like if you want 21mm at the first and your board is 6mm then minimum neck thickness is 15mm and so on.

 

Check your bearing on the router bit is the correct size, I bought some bearings and bits seperately and ended up with this sort of issue as the bearings were slightly smaller.

Other thing is you maybe plunged to deep so the actual collet of the router hit the wood, also learnt that the hard way lol.

 

But yeh, don't panic, just assess the situation and figure out a fix. It happens to us all.

Thank you for the suggestion about the neck depth. I had already cut the neck to depth, so that’s probably not going to go. 

I think I will take one of my reject fretboards and use the whole thing as a practice piece. One of the fretboards has no binding on it, maybe if I could run some binding over the fretboard/neck joint and backfill any gaps with CA glue and sawdust ….

@steveh 

Any thoughts how I can make this ok, without it looking like a dog’s dinner? Or should I chalk it up to experience and start with another blank?

I was thinking, reduce the top as @njs says, then laminate a piece on top to get your thickness back to what you want. I know that laminated necks are usually pieces glued side by side, but dare to be different.

Posted by: @robin

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@steveh 

Any thoughts how I can make this ok, without it looking like a dog’s dinner? Or should I chalk it up to experience and start with another blank?

I was thinking, reduce the top as @njs says, then laminate a piece on top to get your thickness back to what you want. I know that laminated necks are usually pieces glued side by side, but dare to be different.

Now, that’s an interesting idea! I’ll certainly have a play with that and let you know how it works out - thank you!

Posted by: @nsj

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Other thing is you maybe plunged to deep so the actual collet of the router hit the wood, also learnt that the hard way lol.

 

Yeah I learned that the same way. In my case it was at the neck socket. Yeah. I almost cried. The fix? Well as some may recall, I grew up in an auto body shop so the fix was body filler. Not auto body filler (bondo anyone?) but wood filler. I use it quite a bit actually. You can’t put wood back but you sure can fill it with wood bondo. That’s a big reason you see solid colors on some of my builds. Works well for filling those tilting router mistakes when surfacing a piece (I can’t seem to stop doing it when surfacing the headstock so I’ll fill and sand then slap a piece of veneer on the headstock).

Just as in auto body work, a guitar builder/luthier is only as good as their coverups are invisible.

@steveh

I have a kit I bought 2 1/2 years ago I’ve still not finished for that very reason.

First thing was dropping the body after spraying the final coat of clear 🤦🏻‍♂️😭 Cracked at a glue joint. Fixed that.

Second thing was for some unknown reason I had trouble getting some of the edges covered with the burst and not seeing it until AFTER spraying (again) the final coat of clear. 😭😭😭🤦🏻‍♂️

After removing the finish I glued a veneer on the front of the body. Had to use filler at the edges due to the edge carves to hide the seam. Completed the finish without a hitch (3 times a charm right?) then buffed through it on several edges. 

And I still haven’t completed that one. I may just spray a satin clear and not bother sanding and buffing the dang thing. Ugh, it’s been a nightmare but for now is stashed in a closet so I don’t have to look at it anymore. 😆

@rathius I use regular car matt 1k, so simple, dry sand very lightly after to remove any overspray or that but there's none of this wet sanding or polishing. I ALWAYS sand through gloss lol

Look at the sheen on that!

Hi everyone,

so, an update. Sorry it’s taken a little while, but I’ve been on holiday.

Firstl, it looks like my first assessment of what had happened was wrong, since I was unable to recreate the problem using the same router bit on the other side of the neck, but using my other router (Bosch POF 1200 ae instead of Bosch GKF 550 which I used first time round).

Looking more closely at the neck, I see a groove of about the same width as the bearing on the bit, then a narrow ridge, which I think corresponds to the tiny gap between the edge of the bearing and the start of the cutter itself. Then of course, the next thing is the area that has been cut by the bit, in line with the “bearing groove” above. 

So, I had to ask why it was different between the 2 routers, which led me to a question. The GKF 550 has a fixed spindle speed @ 33,000rpm, whereas the POF 1200 has a selectable speed, with lowest (which is what I used successfully) is only 10,000 rpm. Is it possible for a fast spindle speed to be too much for the bearing, so that the outside of it also spins? Is that a thing? Could that have caused the bearing to wear its own groove in the relatively soft Samba neck? Is that a thing?

Any other thoughts as to what the problem might have been?

As to fixing the damage, I’m thinking: tidy up the edge to give a smooth surface, and glue on a laminate strip from the offcuts of wood, then recut the neck. Unfortunately, the approach of lowering the height of the neck, and adding a laminate on top won’t work, as there is no part of the neck that is still wide enough.

Thank you all so much for your comments to date, very helpful. As @koendb said, it’s about figuring out how to put right the errors.

Cheers all

Steve

@steveh are you sure the bearing isn't a bit knackered?

Also what wood are you using? Bearing whouldn't be leaving any marks like that unless it's really soft wood.

@nsj well, I wondered about the bearing, but it spins freely by hand, and I used it afterwards on the other side of the neck without problem.

The neck is samba, so it is relatively soft, but I’ve used the same method for  a samba neck before as well. 🤔 

@steveh maybe you're just pushing to hard against the neck?

I've never had the problem myself so not a 100% sure what's happened.

@nsj I wonder whether that’s it. I mean, on the one hand, I’m paranoid about the possibility of the router tipping and leaving those tell-tale grooves in the side of the neck, so I do try to keep the whole thing level - maybe I over-compensated, and samba is fairly soft.

That said, the whole of my last build was made of samba, and I didn’t have such problems, but then I used my POF 1200 for that. The only time I’ve had this problem was the time I used the GKF. Think I’ll do some controlled experiments 🙂

I’m feeling a lot more philosophical about the whole thing now, many thanks to you and to the other contributors to this thread

cheers

Steve

@steveh I always do that kind of (tempate) routing on the routing table, if possible. For me it is far too easy to wobble with a handheld router and tilt it a bit.

On the other hand, the router table is a bit scary too...

@steveh I solved that issue with some 10mm acrylic sheets off ebay, now I can hold my router very flat while routing. Did it to both my palm routers.

let’s see how this turns out …..