I decided to finish the neck in a nice silky smooth Tru Oil gun stock finish so it got many coats. I treated the fretboard with Lemon Oil. Attachment : 713D192D-2366-4DF2-8FB8-A6630AFC7DA9.jpeg ...

Ok, back to the neck. Installation of the frets and preparing the nut slot. Attachment : 09851DCA-72B3-4709-894C-C60A7C350ACB.jpeg Attachment : 8A379F6B-FC81-4423-A720-5198AA165A1A.jpeg ...

I then gave the whole guitar body several coats of sanding sealer and left to fully cure. Attachment : 7587ECD4-C789-4295-9DD2-F9B82E74600D.jpeg

As Ash is an open grain wood, I wanted to use grain filler so I could achieve a high gloss finish with lacquer (I used auto clear coat actually). I applied the filler with a paint brush as I let down ...

Next, a bit of body carving. A belly cut and a knee cut. I used hand tools for this, rasp, files and sandpaper. Attachment : 198FBD81-9778-47A5-B563-3AC5BB3E3A96.jpeg Attachment : F64C2730-...

To transfer the corresponding screw holes to the neck I put the neck into the body, it was a nice snug fit. I then slowly drove the screws through the holes in the body until I could feel them pressin...

After some test fitting of the neck and careful placement of the neck plate, I marked the holes for main neck screws. I then drilled them out carefully on the drill press. Attachment : DB070146-1A...

Now it was time to mark everything out onto the top, ready for some routing. Several jigs were used to route out the pickup cavities, control cavity, the main body and the neck pocket. Note: normally ...

With the nature of Spalted wood being inconsistent and unpredictable, it has to be stabilised. I did this by applying CA glue (super glue) liberally and spreading it around with an old credit card. I ...

Time to laminate the Spalted Maple top to the Ash body blank. I just lined up the centre lines after applying the glue and used lots of clamps and weights, and used some strategically placed screws an...

Before laminating the Spalted Maple top to the body blank, I wanted to route some channels for the pickup wiring from the pickup cavities to the control cavity. To help prevent the glue from filling t...

I thought I’d take a break from the neck and start to look at the body woods, I had a beer whilst contemplating. Attachment : 4F2CA736-352B-4586-AFD4-38B03430E2DD.jpeg Attachment : 73408E99...

Time for some fretboard work. I marked out on the fretboard where the fret markers were to be drilled and then drilled them. I also used an off cut from the Maple neck blank to make some Maple plugs w...

I forgot to mention that I used an extra long drill bit to drill an access hole for the truss rod adjustment in the headstock. After a lot of sanding, going through the grades, I had a nice looking ne...

Time to carve the neck. This was a transferable skill that I learned from dong Mark’s online course “Build your own electric guitar”. I made an adjustment to the neck heal as I bought a curved neck pl...

Time to put the truss rod in, glue a fillet in, plane the excess off when dry and put the fretboard on. This was held in place with clamps and a caul and a couple of pins for alignment whilst the glu ...

As the design of this neck needs a curved transition from the headstock to the fretboard, I used a spindle sander to achieve that. Common sense told me that I couldn’t just put the neck on the machine...

I used a jig and a router with an extended base plate to surface route the front face of the headstock. This is a parallel headstock with the neck (not angled back like a Les Paul) like a Tele or Stra...

I used my drill press to drill the holes for the tuners in the headstock. Attachment : C660A7DF-05F4-403D-9D00-7FCD929411DF.jpeg

Routed the truss rod slot. Attachment : BBB343F6-B29F-4F7F-938E-7A58E91E6750.jpeg