Installing the Frets | Project Mehr | Guitar Build Log Part 4

hey everybody this is austin and welcome back to my channel and the last two videos we machined the neck and the fretboard but they're not really a neck until they've been glued together so that's the plan for today we're gonna glue up the fretboard to the neck and then we're gonna sand and scrape off all of the tool marks and then finally install and bevel the frets now if i'm being perfectly honest filing sanding scraping is probably my least favorite part of any given project but it is important and with a little bit of patience some elbow grease and a lot of caffeine i was able to turn two separate pieces into a nearly perfect neck so let me show you how i did it and let's dig right in so order of operations here so a lot of people tend to sand down the backside and any other major surfaces first before they glow on the fretboard i'm not going to do that in this case because i have kind of a knife edge here because i went to a perfect c shape i didn't come tangent to my fretboard and the point of that is i intended to when this is glued on to roll that edge into the fretboard and soften that up a little bit and so if i sand this ahead of time let's say i sand it um i grab some sheets of sandpaper and i sand over those edges i might create a little small spot here anywhere along that edge and then my fretboard may not line up quite the way i want and then i'm gonna have to do a lot more work and maybe end up creating a divot in my fretboard so it's really important for me because of the neck shape that i've got to go ahead and glue on the fretboard first and then take care of the rest of my sanding so that's what we're going to go ahead and do is we're going to set up for the glue up and i'm going to be using um this support call and a bunch of these little six inch bessie clamps and we're gonna do it off the end of my vise here so that way i can get underneath all of them i've got about five or six of them and i have some other clamps i can use as well so first things first let's go ahead and make sure this is flat so i'm going to check first of all is there any high spots along this edge might be a tiny one right there i'm not sure if i'm worried about it it feels pretty smooth when i machine the neck i did give it a little bit of a scuffing with 220 sandpaper let me go ahead and just take care of that little spot right there it's just a little raised portion compared to the rest of the neck yeah i can't feel that anymore okay um and let's give it the eye check let me grab a straight edge okay that side is looking pretty good it will conform to the fretboard a little bit when i glue it up and that side has a slight twist in it just a hint of a twist i think that'll be fine when we get it on the fretboard and it's on the heel side of the neck which is where i would prefer if this were to happen for it to happen because that'll get bolted down so okay i think i'm happy with that so let's go ahead and glue this thing together okay so what i need to do is i need to put a strip of tape over the truss rod slot to kind of help prevent any squeeze out from getting into the slot but also what i need to do is prevent glue from getting past the nut line so what i'm going to do is i'm going to put the fretboard on and i'm going to line it up to kind of my ideal alignment here pretty as close as i can get it let's hold it there that looks pretty good okay and then what i'm going to do take a mechanical pencil and i'm going to basically scribe my or mark my nut line because that will let me know that first of all when i drop it down i will have a reference of where i need to place this to get it really close right off the bat and then secondly it will let me know that you know where my tape can extend to and where my glue can extend to so let's go ahead and put our tape down and i'm going to go ahead and yeah that's close enough okay and then what we'll do is let's pull this forward a little bit go ahead and center this up i'm just going to rip this off for now okay get that as centered as we can that looks pretty good okay just past the truss rod slot so that's good and yes that is nicely centered all the way across and let me rip that off okay so that'll work for me for that and so we have our nut line and so now we can apply some glue now i'm not too worried about the tape um blocking off too much of the truss rod slot because once i put the glue on there and there will be squeeze out some of that's going to squeeze a little bit closer to the truss slot so that'll be fine okay so now let's just double check everything okay and let's go ahead and do a dry run so i'm going to take you over to my vise right here and i'm going to show you exactly how we're going to clamp this up then we'll put some glue on it and pull the trigger okay so let's go ahead and do a dry run so i've set up a piece of plywood in my homemade moxon vise that i've got just supported with some dowel pins and what i can do is it's roughly the right size for this um support call that i have so i can go ahead and take the neck put it on here and i'm going to use a support call to support the weakest side of the neck where the truss rod is closest to this back profile and if i have to clamp on the neck profile back here at least it's on the thickest part of it so we'll support it like that and then what i can do is go ahead and spread my glue take my fretboard drop it in use my nut line as a reference here get it as close as i can and then once that's pretty close i'm going to go ahead and drop one of these on each end being very careful not to move anything i'm just going to do one on this end too just very light pressure just to hold everything in place and let's go ahead and check my alignment okay back side feels pretty good maybe just come at hair that way perfect okay so that's good and then what i can go ahead and do is set up more now so i'm going to set up one at about every two and a half three inches or so very light pressure again for the time being just keeping track of everything that might be moving on me make adjustments ahead of time before i really clamp down everything feels pretty good now obviously it's going to move a little bit more when there's glue on it so i'll have to be a bit more cautious and let's do another one there just barely engage these okay and once those are basically engaged and i double check everything everything still feels pretty good so then i'll go ahead and take these little compression clamps or whatever you call them spring clamps i'm going to place them in the middle of each one each one of these little gaps like so another one there and i've got one more on the end here okay and then double check one more time make sure everything is good and if it is then i'll go ahead and tighten each one of these down to full clamping pressure now it's my understanding that you don't actually need a ton of clamping pressure on fretboards because you don't want to starve that joint of the glue because you might get too much squeeze out so just a nice firm hand pressure i'm not going to really crank down on it or anything like that and then i will go ahead and let that sit for probably a couple hours i think it only needs 30 40 minutes to cure but i'll let it set for a couple of hours go work on some cad models or something and then come back and i will see you guys in a little bit so let's go ahead and do the glue up and let's get this started okay moment of truth here we go so let's go ahead and apply our glue now i'm going to use an old credit card to spread this around i got that little idea from chris monk from highline guitars okay let's go ahead and spread this around pick up some that kind of went on the side there a little bit more on this corner i'm just going to put a small little dab across the whole thing i can always squeeze off the extra or not squeeze off scrape off okay and let's go ahead and okay and i put way too much okay there we go okay and put some of that up here okay you know what i'm just gonna use my finger because this card is not working for me sorry chris just try to get some even spread i'm not too worried about some getting a little bit over the edge here because remember that edge is going to get sanded pretty heavily up against the fretboard so i'm not too worried about that tape and just get a little bit more a little bit more on that end over there everywhere else looks pretty good just want a nice even coverage a little bit up here there we go all right there and we're almost done this type on two dries up pretty pretty quickly i think i've got a little too much on this end over here so i need to work a little faster here okay wipe that off looks like all areas are covered a little bit more right there that's good okay let's go ahead and peel the tape off i can get to it come on of course it doesn't want to peel right now please don't rip of course it wants to rip there we go okay fill that up there we go okay wipe this up let's not get any glue on our fretboard okay now i'm going to get this as lined up as i can ahead of time that looks pretty good let me feel the ends here feels pretty good okay and i think i'm gonna change plans a little bit i'm just going to put a starter clamp on here just to get me going and that moved on me already just okay i do not like that clamp okay we'll go ahead with my original plan that did not work out okay and light clamp pressure on the end here double check my alignment that all feels great on that end and scoot the neck back a little bit and we'll do this side okay checking that side okay and it lines up nicely with my nut line which is good let's check the heel side okay i think i'm pretty happy everything feels pretty good everything feels like it lines up so let's go ahead and put a clamp here i think i put a little too much glue you know you live and learn i'm getting more squeeze out already than i wanted so that's okay though you don't really want to wipe up squeeze out i've learned from various projects because oftentimes if you wipe it up you leave like a thin film on the surface that becomes pretty difficult to stand out so i'm just going to leave it be scrape off as much as i can after the fact okay sorry if i'm blocking the camera here i'm under a little bit of a time crunch okay get one more on there okay double check the alignment again yes heel side feels great next side feels good okay we are ready to squeezer now i'm not really cranking these down i'm just checking to see if there's still a lot of movement left okay heel side feels good next side feels good i think i'm going to be happy with this i'm just going to wipe up a little section right there so i can feel it a little better yeah i think we nailed it all right cool well i am happy with that so i'm gonna go ahead and leave that for a couple hours um through the magic of editing you'll see me in a couple seconds but uh i'll see you in a minute [Music] so [Music] um hmm [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] um [Music] um [Music] all right so it's time to install the frets and the frets that i purchased are pre-cut 2.9 millimeter stainless steel fret wire and my fretboard originally had tangs that went all the way through the fretboard and i orig at some point i don't remember when i changed that to hidden tanks and so these pre-cut ones are kind of nice because i don't have to size each one individually and i can actually use one edge that's already nipped because it's basically the right size for my fretboard anyway maybe just slightly off but easily within filing distance um and so all i can do is i can just line it up to one edge make my mark nip one nip one side off and then take it over to my filing jig that i've created so it's just a little 3d printed filing jig and what you do is you just slide this in here like this it's got a little groove for both the tang and the crown and then i use a hex key to tighten it down and this little 3d printed jig has two hex bolts on the back that's locking this all together and then once that's locked down to the length i want i can just take my file and file that off on each one individually now i could have bought you know more expensive like custom fret tang nippers um i don't currently plan on building guitars for a living and so i didn't see that investment as worth it as this may be a one-off build it might not be i don't know if i end up building a lot more guitars i'll definitely probably invest in one but for the time being i just made a little 3d printed jig we're going to file those off and install them into here all right so i've clipped my first one and i quickly realized that what i should do is i should set like kind of like a depth stop just a visual marker that'll tell me how far i need to go so i'm going to line this up flush with one side and then i'm going to mark that as my depth right there that should get me pretty close so let me go ahead and do this side and we'll do one of these together and then we'll probably time lapse the rest of this see nobody got time for all of that okay that's looking pretty good let's go ahead and lock that down oop drop my key all right that is pretty locked in there let's go ahead and file this down [Laughter] [Music] [Music] almost there [Laughter] okay that's getting really close there okay i'm gonna take a look at that and if i need to make any adjustments once it's out of here i've got a small needle file that i can take to it now i'm gonna double check my length here make sure i got that right [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] wow well there you have it we have an incredible neck that is ready to be fit up to the body now i was really worried about how the fretboard was going to glue up and how difficult it was going to be to get the tool marks off the back of the neck because i used a pretty large step over but man i will tell you what everything just came out super smooth and comfortable and i'm having quite a hard time finding problems with this neck now it is ready for finish but i'm not going to apply finish yet because i want to see how this this heel transition fits up to my body and leave myself a little bit of room for extra sanding just in case i want to make that really nice and flush so that actually brings me to my next point don't miss the next video because we are finally ready to start cutting the body for this guitar so that includes cutting the fixture and book matching this really beautiful piece of walnut onto a slip match mahogany body and then finally cutting it out on the cnc so that's what i have in store for you guys for next week so don't miss that video but thank you so much for coming this is austin signing out

Channel: Austin Shaner

Views: 479

Keywords: Autodesk Fusion 360, CAD, CAD Modeling, CAM, CAM Basics, CNC, CNC Router, DIY, Fusion 360, Fusion 360 Beginner, Fusion 360 CAM Guitars, Fusion 360 Tutorials, Guitars in Fusion 360, Tutorials, fusion 360 tutorial, Autodesk, Sketching basics, Variable Chamfer, Variable Fillet, Guitar Body, Guitar Neck, Xcarve, Xcarve CNC, Guitars with Xcarve, CNC for Guitars, Mehr, DIY Guitar, DIY Guitar Neck, Flat Guitar Neck, Guitar Neck CAM, Fretboard, CNC fretboard, Installing frets

Id: _pegzj9Cnzg

Length: 29min 27sec (1767 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 14 2021