Glory work! Fingerboards and Inlays at last.

I have been looking forward to seeing the necks take on their final "facial" appearance, and I'm pleased with the results.

First I needed to sand the excess neck maple away from the headstock bindings. To do this, I made a sanding jig the exact radius of the concave sides, and spray mounted successively finer sandpaper to it. If I hadn't done it this laborious way,  I'm sure the curve would never have been just right, and this would be really obvious to the hand and eye.

Sanding the other headstock side curves was easier, using a drill press sanding tool with a few grits of paper. That's a vac on the left, keeping the room just a little less messy.

Well, I had a heartbreak here, but it's going to be OK. My drill press quill has gotten a lot of side movement in it, from using the Wagner Safe-T-Planer. So when I drilled the tuner holes from the back of the headstocks, they drifted all over the place laterally. I just about shit myself. Anyhow, I repaired the drill press, plugged the holes (with maple dowels), and redrilled them. Fortunately, the tuners have washers on the top, which cover all the visible maple except for one hole on each headstock, which I patched with a cherry or cherry burl "Dutchman."

I bought preslotted ebony fingerboards from Stewmac. They're beautiful. They come with parallel sides, and needed to be tapered, so I made a simple tablesaw jig. Here's the first cut on each.

For the second, final cut, I reversed the fingerboard in the jig, and added the offcut from the previous cut, plus a spacer.  I had to do it this way because the boards had to be tapered from each side, relative to the fret slots.  Worked fine.

I used a special caul to glue each of the fingerboards. You can't see them in this photo, but there are three alignment pins through the caul and fingerboard into the necks, to make sure the fingerboards don't slide under clamp pressure. 

I used maple and cherry for binding the sides of the fingerboards. I clamped the bindings hard against the fingerboard, then used superglue to weld the wood together. The cauls here are covered in wax paper. I use "Cut Rite" brand wax paper because the name suggests it should be used in woodworking.

I mitered the binding joints at the base. Here is one being clamped for gluing.  I left the bindings just higher than the top surface of the radiused fingerboard, so I could use it as a stable base for my mini router when inlaying.

First inlays: diamonds on my neck. I used .3mm mechanical pencil to draw alignment guides, then traced around each diamond with the pencil as I held it in position. Than I used a dental burr chucked into a Dremel Moto Tool with a router base. The black epoxy I mix will squirt up from the hole to fill those little cuts in the diamonds.

Mortises for the gold MOP inlays on Brendan's fingerboard. Same technique as the little diamonds, but a lot more ebony dust.

Here's how I made the pattern for the inlay pictures on the headstocks: First, I scanned the headstocks and inlays actual size, combined them in Photoshop, and printed them on adhesive label paper.  Then I peeled the backing off the prints, stuck the in their spot on the headstocks, and cut away the "inlay parts" with an exacto knife.

When all the pieces were cut out, I emptied my shop's pencil sharpener onto a sheet of paper and blackened my finger with the graphite, rubbing it in to the stencil. The graphite sunk onto the knife marks, leaving a clear pattern for me to cut.

The completed headstock pattern, ready for routing and cutting.

Since I wanted the best fit for these inlays, I only used the router to waste away the insides where I could. This was helpful in establishing the proper depth for the mortises. I cut the rest by hand with tiny chisels I made by sharpening jewelers screwdrivers. This was tedious.

I mixed cherry dust with epoxy to glue the 34 inlay pieces. 

I used black epoxy on the fingerboard inlays. I then let the whole thing cure for a day before sanding.

Sanding the fingerboard inlays took some time, but went very well. I purchased a 12" radius aluminum sanding block from Stewmac - the only expensive tool I bought - but it was worth every cent. I spray-mounted 60 grit paper to the block and used it to grind the shell and epoxy down to the ebony, then used 80, then 100, then 120, then 150, then 180, then 220, then 400, the 600 grit paper on the block to get a decent scratch-free surface.. 

Cutting waste wood from the sides and end of the fingerboard on the bandsaw. I taped blocks under the neck to support it during the cut,  and left a little extra next to the bindings, which will come off when I shape the necks, starting Monday.

Here are the necks in their present shape, ready for shaping, fretting, and attaching to the bodies.

Finished headstock inlays. You can see the patches over the two ill-drilled holes, which won't be noticed after the tuners and their washers are installed.