Fretting

To prevent for rattling strings the frets need to be leveled. I first protected the fret board with masking tape.

With a long sanding block I filed the frets down. The frets have to "crowned" afterwards which is basically making them round again. The file which is used to do this job is hollowed out so it makes the frets round again. An example of the file:

After that I trimmed the overhang of the back with a router in the same way I did with the top.
After that I sanded the overhang of the top round. Still a lot of sanding needs to be done before I can oil the guitar. I am in the final stages and cannot wait to hear how it sounds! Some sneak previews:

Sound body

It is now officially a guitar! The last major constructive piece has been added: the back. So the body is closed. Before I glued the back on I measured and marked where the tailpiece should come. The part of the tailpiece which will be fitted onto the body has a large bold which is screwed into the tail block. I drilled a hole of about 5.5 mm wide where it can be screwed in. The thread of the bold is about 6.1 mm so this hole is needed to prevent the tail block from splitting.

Then the back had his turn. I first clamped it onto the body without glue to see if there where no gaps between the sides and the back. Once confirmed I applied the glue and put the clamps all around the body:

While that was drying I concentrated on the nut. With the tailpiece we measured where the high and the low e strings would end up on the nut. With a string spacing ruler I determined where the other strings would end up. I sawed the string slots in. This has to be done in an angle of about 20 degrees

After 1,5 hours the clamps could be removed and showed the result:

Of course the back needs to be trimmed.

Neck

I want to give a quick update on the guitar. The neck is glued to the body. I took a lot of small adjustments to aline the neck with the body so it stood perfectly straight in respect to the center line of the body. But when satisfied the glue was applied to the body and the heel of the neck as well as the part of the underside of the fret board that touches the top. Then the nuts where tightened to pull the neck firmly to the body. A single clamp was used to prevent the neck from pulling up.

Also I drilled the hole which will accommodate the jack for the pick-up which is also the strap button. I used the same method as with the holes for the tuners in the head-stock.

as you can see it is not right in the middle (since that is where the cross is) but just above it. It is better not to place it under the center of the guitar since that will impose a thread of the guitar flipping over when it is hanging to its strap.