Official Luthiers Forum!

Just started to build. Made the bending form and mold. I'm ready cut cut the blocks. I've only made guitars with truly flat tops before and so not sure about the best order to do things.
Should the slope on the top of the neck block be put on before putting in the mold and if so, do I put the top of the sides face down in the mold on a flat surface and the let the neck end of the block be off that surface, or is the top of the neck block bowl sanded later along with the sides to give the slope?

Any help gratefully received as always.
Charles.

Are you building the neck and neck block per the drawing or are you using a cnc'd or conventional neck and neck block?

If you are building the neck and neck block per the drawing you will notice that the cantilevered fretboard extension tong is planed to a 1.5 degree slope. so you will need to raise your mold by means of shim at the rim seam by .079" or glue the block in with the top side up and set the seam edge of the neck block flush with the rim top edge. Keep in mind here these plans are drawn to the way I build i build with flat top rim profile (no sanded profile on the top) and I pull the perimeter of top to meet the rim .076" at the upper bout. If you plan to sand the rim to the 28' profile then shim the seam edge of neck block up .079", so that when you sand your profile it match the profile.

if you are using a premade or a neck block that is not like the one on the drawing the place the mold top down and the neck block flush as you mentioned

Thanks for the prompt reply Michael.
It was my intention to try to build it as per the plans. I bought the John Mayes dvd,s and noted that his method also uses the extention piece. My first two guitars used the 'normal' block method.
I assume that the extention piece remains a flat plane so that the fingerboard extension lies flat on it at the same angle as the slope.
Am I then correct in thinking that once in the mold you don't bowl sand the top of the rim, but do radius the top by using curved braces then pull it to conform to the rim?
Charles.

You are correct. There are those that will set theit lingings proud of the top of the rim by 1/8" of just less and sand a slight angle into them. I have had no issues pulling the arched top down to flat linings. I have also in the past not planed a taper in the tong. but cam back later after the blocks and linings were installded and sanded a tapered plane into the upper bout starting 3" back from the joint till ther was a 1.5 degree slope. Lots of ways to skin the cat.

Just a few pics of how the guitar is progressing.