Dan, you know I'm not in a hurry, so be sure to hang on to it until Moody gets a good look at it. Between the two of you, maybe you can post a sound clip or something. I'm playing the odds here and saying there's a good chance at least one of you can probably make it sound better than I can.

Final neck alignment/fitting is (finally) done. This part took a while because the neck angle was completely wrong for this guitar. Not only was it wrong, but it was too long. Instead of it being a 14-fret to the body neck, it was a 14.1-fret to the body. This mean that I had to take material off from the inside of the heel to bring the 14th fret into the proper position so it is right above the neck/body joint. It was about 1/8" too long. And, crooked, too.

Now it fits really nice.

Bridge location is being masked.

Mask off the bowl. Time to start the finishing process.

First coat of clear. I probably won't be posting too many pics while I apply the finish.

This is starting to look EXACTLY like I thought it would. Dan and I had similar concerns about the darkness of the SRW top having too much color, but it is shaping up (Get it? ) to be what I hoped both in shade and grain.

Just as importantly from an aesthetic perspective, the rosewood binding and bridge are going to have some serious POP when finished and glossed. With the abalone serving as a counterpoint, they will sum up to a striking, but elegant, juxtaposition from dark (top) to light (purfling) to darker (binding/bridge).

Me? Getting excited? Why would you think that?

BTW Dan, you had no way of knowing this, but I find it borderline providential that my birthday is in a few weeks. No pressure or anything......

Is the fret spacing on the neck not a function of scale? If so, then I assume that bridge placement is crucial to get the scale spot on. With a shortened neck, or this new body-neck match in general, what is your approach to get the position of the saddle right?

So that Patch can breathe easy, I'll say now that I carefully measured the bridge location relative to the neck so that the scale length (and, more importantly the intonation) is preserved. (I always align the bridge to the neck)

The problem wasn't that the fret board was too long. Rather, that the fret board was located in the wrong spot on the neck. Possibly. I can't really say what happened at the factory. Only that the 14th fret was not located at the neck/body joint. It was 1/8" away from it.

I don't have the top any more, so I can't measure whether the bridge was located in the correct spot relative to the neck, or if it was jigged in place on the top which would have made the scale on this guitar too long by about 3/32".

Here's a couple of pics that compares this neck (after alignment/fitting) to a CL neck. I lined up the nuts, and the frets are even with each other all the way up the fret board.

Here's my 1624 neck joint. Notice that the center of the 14th fret aligns with the neck/body joint, same as the CL neck above.

Here's a close-up of an early pic of this neck while it was still attached to the body. Notice that the lower edge of the 14th fret is pretty close to the neck/body joint, not the center of the fret.

This means that the heel of the neck is too long.

So, there were two things to do: relocate the fret board, or grind the heel down.

I didn't really have to do this work. In fact, unless I have to, I usually try to not mess with the heel.

I could have simply located the bridge so that it was in the right spot relative to the neck, but I needed to take material off the heel to align the neck and set the neck angle anyway, so I figured why not fix this at the same time.

I talked to Dan last weekend. He's been busy, but making steady progress. The top will be finished anytime now. After that, all that's left is to paint the bowl and check for finishing touches.

He passed on a little detail I didn't know: He had the top shaved just a bit thinner than Ovation would have. He thinks it will work well with the A-bracing, and so far, he says it rings like a bell when tapped.

It's just as well that it's taking a little longer though, considering it has to travel from California to NY. I would have worried myself into a hospital if it was traveling through all the weather we've had recently.

As Patch wrote, the top is mostly done. I'll probably polish once more before I glue on the neck and bridge.

Speaking of the bridge, that's done, too. I'll polish it up a little bit before I glue it on.

The bowl is textured. It's not an exact duplicate of the factory texture, but it's a close approximation.

There's a couple of minor dings on the back of the neck that I'm now ready to address. Once these are filled and leveled, I'll give the neck a quick polish, then it's time to align and glue the neck, then the bridge.

I had unbelievable luck. I was able to actually find another set of hen's teeth -- NOS Schaller 541 gold tuners. One goes onto Patch's parlor and the other goes into my stash for future use.

Moving right along...

I put a final polish on the top. I filled the dings in the neck and polished it. I also did a quick polish on the bridge.

Now it's time to start putting it all together. (Woo hoo!)

Neck and body are masked in preparation for joining. Neck is aligned and glued into place using Hysol 0151. I mixed in some West Systems 423 graphite powder to blacken the 0151.

Masking is removed. I'll let this cure until tomorrow, then I'll pull the guitar out and prepare for gluing the bridge. (You should be getting excited now, Patch. In a couple of days it's going to be a playable guitar)

"WOO HOO" INDEED!

Thanks, everyone. I'm glad you're enjoying the build.

I pulled the guitar out of the fixture and prepared to glue the fret board extension and bridge.

I masked the top around the fret board extension. Next, I carefully cut the bridge masking to expose the bare wood.

I masked around the bridge location.

Fret board extension and bridge are glued and clamped. I left these to cure overnight.

The construction of the guitar is basically done.

Now it's time to install the hardware and electronics, then make a saddle and new nut.

After that, the only thing left is to string it up and play it!!