Walnut Hollowbody Build

New fretboard day! I've been debating buying a ready made board vs doing my own. Ready made saves me time and ensures accurate slotting and radius cut but you don't get to pick your board.

I saw this piece of Honduran rosewood today and my mind was made up. It's gorgeous.
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Grain is all quarter sawn, tight and straight. No knots or pinholes and very heavy.
 
I was reading the lmi website about fretboard woods and they had a write up about Honduran rosewood. They claim that many top builders now insist on it. I don't know if that's true, but it has what you want in a good board. It's oily but not too oily, hard and dense.
When you rap on, it sustains for a long time and the pitch is definitely lower than the walnut's.
 
Whew. All parts are ordered except pickups. All the way down to the strap buttons. Found a really cool tailpiece, too.

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Now this is a telling pic. Rosewood is oily and that's one of the reasons it is prized as a fretboard material. It also makes it hard to glue. :embarrassed: Glue failures are common if precautions aren't taken.
After cutting the Honduran board today, I looked at the fresh cut ends. Man, they looked like they had a coating of wax on em. Very glossy, and this is a rough cut end grain. No sanding or anything. Crazy, I tell ya. Crazy.


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jelloman said:
Considering your plan I'd go darker...
Click to expand...

The plan has changed.
But I decided to go darker. Like this.

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And you may ask yourself "Self. Why is there a thin strip of African mahogany laying there?"
And that would be a legitimate question.

The answer is that the mahogany is becoming part of my neck sandwich. I liked the results of it so much on the tele that I thought I'd do it here with a twist.
Actually, hoping to avoid a twist. :grin:

Adding a third layer does a few things. One, it adds more material. Two, it adds an additional joint and glue surface, which stabilizes things. Three, it keeps the truss rod from pressing directly on the bottom of the fretboard. Rosewood is known for glue failures and this piece is mostly wax. I'm hoping that the porous mahogany will bear the brunt of the pressure with a stronger glue joint.


And here is gluing up the lamination for the headstock. Remember before, it was end grain. I overlaid a 1/8" veneer of walnut with a nice straight quarter sawn face.

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And we have a laminated headstock. Plywood haters can suck it! :tongue:

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Still need to square it up a bit more, but I like the nice quarter sawn look on the face.
 
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