Acoustic Guitar Construction

I used the piece of pipe with sandpaper but thinking about it, because of the cupping, the top and bottom edges will have been sanded disproportionately thin.

I mis-read -- channel looks fine, its OK to cut into the kerking -- actually fairly normal.

How much difference (disproportionately thin)? Walnut is usually flattened with the side reinforcements (another benefit of using wood rather than cloth) and also sands pretty easy.

Oh great. Well I sanded until there were no more rough patches but I imagine that to remove the rough from the centre of the side I must have ended up sanding more from the edges due to the curve if you see what I mean. Sorry if I haven't explained very clearly. If the odd cut into the kerfing is not a problem then I'm sure it will be fine. Just to double check, I route JUST the back channel and then proceed to cut the rim covering from the neck joint?

That is correct -- you want to "tweak the neck fit" before routing the soundboard side.

Morning all,

my day off is stretching before me and hopefully it'll rain so I don't feel obliged to do any work in the garden.

I've cut out the rim coving the neck mortise without any dramas and I've got a nice snug fit with the neck. roughly fitted the neck and bolted it, checked with the piece of MDF in place of the fingerboard and only a very small gap at under it at the soundhole end so all looking good for the neck angle. I'm about to sand the neck block end of the guitar flat as per the instructions and then will re-check and post pics but I'm cautiously optimistic!

ok, am very aware that I don't want to mess this up so will proceed very slowly. Am in the process of sanding the rim flat but I think I have not done a great job as the soundboard end of the rim seems to have been sanded more than the rest, I'm worried about continuing to sand as I don't want to change the rim to soundboard angle because as you can see from the pictures it's currently quite good and looks like the soundboard will only need a minimum of sanding to meet the fingerboard without the fingerboard bending away from the strings after the 14th fret. Should I continue to sand the rim or just live with the small gap?

the third picture shows the gap, the others are a bit useless I admit.