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You know, it’s the transitions that get us haha.
So the one in question is the fingerboard to the neck.
My question is : is it customary to leave the edge of the fretboard square or does the neck side taper cut into that ?
For some reason I’ve had issues with that since I did my first neck (not that long ago)

And...
if it should remain square.... why is it difficult not to shave it down? I guess it’s just inexperience and poor planning perhaps.


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Both ways are fine. Both ways are done. I personally feel that, when I intentionally try to leave the fingerboard edges alone, I wind up leaving more of the neck alone than I want to, and that leads to a bit of a chunky, square feel. I get a more rounded feel when I don’t worry about taking off some of the fingerboard edge.

I cut into the fingerboard some. It just feels and looks better to me.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Same.

Play a bunch of different guitars. Feel the necks, which ones do you like or not. Make templates of the ones you like. Build accordingly.

I have been binding many of my necks lately, I do that before the f/b is glued to the neck. I shape the neck just a hair oversize at the transition, glue the f/b on and bring the neck down to the binding. Usually the bottom of the binding will curve very slightly into the neck.

On my guitars, the bottom of the fretboard binding curves slightly into the neck just like Freeman's.

The builder I learned from also rounded the top edge of the fretboard binding slightly inward so that there was actually some tumblehome. Felt good to the hand.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

I definitely cut into the bottom of the fingerboard.

I am a firm believer in continuing the curve of the neck into the edge of the fretboard. You don’t want an edge there.

You have to be careful with a bound fretboard so that you don’t thin the lower edge of the binding too much.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Let me second what Terence just said, binding the fretboard is nice, but adds more opportunities for issues.

Like Freeman, I also bind the fretboard before gluing to the neck and usually use a binding with a thin maple strip at the bottom -- to meld into a veneer sandwiched under the headplate. But on my current build, I carelessly glued the fretboard slightly above the edge of the binding in one spot. Slight, but as the maple strip is only 0.020" thick, and the bottom of the bound fretboard needs to be truly flat for gluing to the neck, close wasn't good enough. So I spent an hour or so today in "repair" mode. I'm coming to the perspective that intermediate luthiery is learning how to make mistakes less visible. I'm getting practice at that.

I have one of your guitars here and was actually looking at it. If you cut into the FB it is very slight. Maybe I was just looking way too hard to see the obvious.


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I try to have a radius that includes the bound edge of the fretboard such that the peak of the radius is the bottom of the binding. That leaves the bottom of the binding the thickest part, and gives what I consider a good feel to the transition. You do have to taper the binding towards the fretboard (or purfling) and control that width for uniform visual appearance.

Didn't we do this one a while back?
Yes, I taper the fingerboard THAT way too. Makes a skinnier neck and your thumb fits around it better.

^^^

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Hmmm.... I guess I am an outlier here. I personally like them to be square at the glue joint but tapered in, to roll into the frets. It still gets cut into so that the edge face of the FB, where the side dots are, is rounded (sort of fattened) but it's not really tapered at the glue joint. IOW if you were to flip the guitar over on it's face and look at the neck from the back you would not see any FB as part of the edge profile, you would only see mahogany for example, not mahogany tapered into ebony.

The one I am building now however is let into and rolled into the FB at the clients request.

I do a slight taper into the FB. It makes for a nice feel

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust