Sunday, November 30, 2008

Body and frets

Some progress! I was able to spend about an hour and a half in the shop yesterday and I made some progress (but took no photos, more's the pity, though I suspect that a post without photos will be well received by all three of the people who read this...).

The progress I made is principally on the top and back. Though I had already taken a block plane and trimmed the top and back as close as I dared to the sides while waiting for charcoal to be ready for some hamburgers, I still had plenty of work to do on them. I took my self-adhesive strip sandpaper, 80 grit, and stuck a length of it to the sanding stick supplied with the kit. I them busied myself sanding the top and back at their edges so that they no longer overhang the sides. This took less time than I thought it would - that 80 grit is aggressive! - but I was forced to stop when I got very close for fear of damaging the sides themselves with the abrasive. I will get myself some 120 and 240 grit self-adhesive stuff and finish the job this week.

I also bought a hammer from Harbor Freight that has a plastic head and a resin head to use in the fretting (the non-metallic heads are not hard enough to damage the fretwire). I cut myself a length of the extra fretwire provided with the kit for practice and did a quick test-fretting experiment on the extra length of fingerboard also thoughtfully provided for this purpose. It turned out to be much easier than I feared to get what appears to be a nicely installed fret. Put the wire in the groove, sharp tap at each end, and then sharp taps across the width of the fingerboard (I think three across the width after seating the ends). Of course it remains to be seen if I can do that successfully 15 times, and then get them level and smooth and properly dressed (the part that really makes me nervous, truth be told) but it was heartening nonetheless.

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