@tej I use a small block plane for that same purpose in guitar building but not much else I don’t think. I once heard Mark say that he has a really cheap block plane for these types of jobs, no point in spending loads of money on a top of the range block plane. I think mine is a Stanley #1 block plane, I use it for all kinds of woodworking tasks away from guitar building. 

@boo I went with a Stanley one, very much sounds like a huge drop in quality. A lot of reviews stating how much better their old ones from grandad are etc. 

So today led to a few issues, all of them user error, none of which I made on the test run!

1. Didn’t tighten the depth stop and noticed too late so one end of the truss rod slot has a deep hole in it, not so much it’ll cause issues but do need to measure to check I don’t carve through the bottom of it

2. Didn’t tighten the one router bit enough, not entirely sure how but this meant it gradually dropped down from the collet through the length of the slot, would honestly have expected this to bind and the collet just spin round it.

3 Turned on dust collection, did I connect the tube to the router, no, build up of dust subsequently meant the router went a little off course a bit.

So I need to flatten the rod slot out, should be fine just means I’ll need perhaps a 2.5mm fillet.

So main lessons, have a break between work and guitars, do a lot more routing on scrap before touching the expensive blank! On the plus side the measurements are all correct other than the depth!

It's all a learning experience @tej. Hang on in there. 👍😁 

🙏🎶🎸🙂

@russ I know but they’re all just down to carelessness, never worked on wood that mattered before so a little frustrated at myself, as you say though it’s all learning. Going to fix things in the morning, the hole at the one end is the only bit that could be a real issue as it’ll mean I’ll have to leave that bit of the neck fatter than I’d like, it’s at the Beal end though so hopefully not an actual problem. At least everything else is hidden under the fretboard. 

@tej

Dont worry, my test run on an old neck blank of not very good quality was so bad I’m not even going to share it. I went too deep in one spot also but hand fitted a patch or two, using an off cut and glued them in with Titebond.  It’s not as hard as you might think.

It’s not as hard as you might think.

@rocknroller that’s the daft thing, my test run on scrap was great! Indeed I know I can fix it, there was a strip of mahogany included with the blank which is spot on for the slot so I can cut that to make a 6x1mm strip to correct the channel depth and then another to go on the top to complete my truss Rod sandwich! Arguably I could just put the truss rod deeper down but would rather or ends up where it was intended.

@tej

Thats what I did, a fill in strip to raise the depth where I was making it deeper for the adjusting nut. Necks are laminated anyway so it should be ok. I also had bad side tear out so cut a patch for that too. Here’s a photo of that. It’s before trimming and shows the clamping method I thought of the get good pressure side to side by inserting a wedge into a saw cut.

Why are people even bothering with the fillet? It's not necessary with a modern truss rod. 

Incidentally, vintagetoolshop.com currently has a 10% off sale and a variety of block planes in stock. If you're not sure if it will be suitable, just ask them, if the staff doesn't know their boss will.

You WILL need to know how to sharpen a plane though, it probably won't be sharp when it comes to you, plus there's a good chance that after 50 years of hand sharpening it'll be far enough off square that grinding it true is a good idea.

Why are people even bothering with the fillet? It's not necessary with a modern truss rod. 

@jonhodgson There is something very neat and elegant about putting the fillet in and it does save excess glue running into the slot when gluing the fretboard on. I just like to make sure that the truss rod won’t rattle because it’s a little loose. It doesn’t take long to do and I enjoy that part, it’s taking pride in doing things properly for me. 👍

Why are people even bothering with the fillet? It's not necessary with a modern truss rod. 

@jonhodgson If people like me are following Mark’s course then it’s from that. The reason he states is to ensure that you don’t get any rattle at all from the rod. Arguably if you route a tighter channel at the perfect depth then it’d be fine without.

I’d be inclined to agree with @boo that it’s a satisfying step if it wasn’t that I jaffered up the initial routing and made something simple more of a pain! 

I would be worried about glue squeeze out from the fretboard getting into the channel. Old style rods in an aluminium u shaped channel I would be happy not using a fillet, but you have to remove so much wood to fit them. Still have three left and don’t know if I want to use them or not.

You WILL need to know how to sharpen a plane though

@jonhodgson happy to hear your advice on this one? Also curious as to the best approach to flatten the bottom of a plane given that the one I got is far from smooth, annoyingly a similar plane from the site you posted looks far smoother and cheaper too!

Start here @tej

@tej This one’s not too bad either 😉

@mattbeels thanks, yet another thing with many many “best” ways to do it, will see how I get on. I need a flatbed of some kind for reflattenising (of course that’s a word!) a couple of whetstones. Looks like the same thing is needed here, granite seems to come out as ideal but float glass about a third of the price. Pieces I’ve seen at only 6mm though so don’t believe for a second that’d stay flat under pressure 

@tej

I got an engineers flat surface from this firm. Not cheap but it has a test certificate accurate to 0.001mm. Solid polished granite and very heavy about 50mm thick I think. For soft water stone abrasive paper can be taped rough side up to flatten.

https://www.chronos.ltd.uk

Just for you @tej This little plane has never let me down.