17" Archtop Jazz Guitar finally starting it 5 years late!

[Herman]

Excellent miter box Kevin. I have the Stewmac one. Works fantastic and flawless, but quite expensive.
Yours has the same principles, so...well done mate!
Herman

[peter havriluk]

John, I'll see your maple neck and raise you two cherry necks.

[Kevin in California]

Yes carving the maple is a stamina challenge for sure.
I used almost exclusively small finger planes and scrapers. Very tough to gouge

I like making my own jigs when possible. I would not have been able to purchase all the specialty fixtures and jigs for this hobby.

[Kevin in California]

The fretboard is now cut to length and tapered, sized to accept binding and purfling.

I am inlaying MOP markers. Spot glued each one in place and cut around them with a razor knife. Then filled the outlines with chalk.

Using my dremel and dremel plunge router base I excavated for the inlays, using a chisel to cut the corners square. All the cavities are done and tomorrow I'll make some ebony sawdust to mix with epoxy and glue the markers in place.

[Kevin in California]

Fretboard inlays are in and sanded flush.
The truss rod slot is cut in and it fits. I won't install it until after the dovetail is cut into the heel. I use the truss rod set to center the neck in the routing jig.

[Kevin in California]

I got my Simpson jig for routing mortise and tenon, and dovetail joints to see if I could make it work.
I could have but didn't like the highly tapered top to bottom template that I have. It's way different then what Benedetto does so.
I decided I'd just cut the dovetail tenon by hand.
It wasn't all that hard to do. At this point all dovetail saw work. The result looks like it should work.

I won't have the body of the guitar together for awhile so no further work will be done on it now.

Next up I'll attach the neck extension that will go over the top.

[Herman]

Clean work Kevin.
I did that twice by hand also. But found it quite difficult to do right in the first place.
These guitars now, 5 years later, are still intact.
Herman