I think I screwed up big time!

[raulblack]

Perhaps its the camera angle -- but it appears that the tail block has the contour toward the inside?

The contour is definitely pointing the correct way, toward the outside edge.

[raulblack]

"Has anybody else had problems with this?"

I've found over the course of a couple years now, that the MM and the instructions are not the cause of any mistakes I've made. Usually, I failed to ask a question before just storming ahead - just my nature, I guess - and then asked for help when it did not work; my bad.

Yes, I knew something was amiss when I flipped the top up, and the block was sticking up to far at the inside edge. I thought about it for awhile and decided, the instructions to sand the top rim and blocks are to take care of this kind of problem. It didn't dawn on me until I started thinking about the necessary precision of the neck angle that I had done something really stupid.

[ken cierp]

Well I don't see that big of a mess -- if any, except for the incorrect sanded angle on the neck block --- you used a large sanding stick to level the top edge right - not the rotating abrasive bar?

Place the rim in the mold top edge up, that edge should be shimmed so it is the same height from the mold base as the tail-block end, all the way around. Take some pixs of that.

[raulblack]

I took detailed photos of every step so far, so I can show anything I did up till this point. Here is a photo of my joint pinning operation of the neck block.

NeckBlockJointPins.jpg (23.53 KiB) Viewed 1015 times

Here is the guitar when flipped top side up in the mold (black tape is to reduce marring when gluing the kerfing). I used the Martin D template to position and tighten the Mega-Mold posts. Perhaps if the posts are just a little too snug to the sides, it would force the neck and tail blocks out of alignment when only inserted half-way into the Mega-Mold as when in the "sand the top" position? Perhaps I should have allowed just a bit of looseness. The fit doesn't appear to be extremely tight. It is snug.

TopSideUp.jpg (50.62 KiB) Viewed 1014 times

[Dave Bagwill]

You are real close, done a good job so far. Good for you! This will work out well as you follow Ken's advice.

[David L]

I build almost exclusively to Ken's methods and most of the tooling that I use came from him also. I learned a long time ago that when I am uncertain about something I contact Ken before proceeding. I usually get a response quite quickly and the best part is that he is available on weekends when a lot of us do most of our work. try that with those big companies. Ken backs his products and procedures 100% PLUS.

David L

[ken cierp]

Did you check to make sure the none of the posts were tipped? Sometime there's a tiny burr to clean up and/or you simply rotate the tube to get it to stand straight. You don't need the black tape, I'd loose that. What were you using to sand the "kerfing" flush with the rim? Also its possible that you have the mold set-up slightly asymmetrical. If the rim fits better when you loosen a couple of posts -- do so. You do need to replace the material you sanded off the top of the neck block (I still don't understand how that happened)? That angled surface is bad news -- again it should be made (at this point) a right angle, mortise area to the top edge of the rim.