page 18
The guitar must be assembled and set up completely before
applying a finish, and then dismantled for finishing.
Place the neck mounting bolts through the neck block holes
in the body. Press the heel against the shoulders, and then
hold the neck in place as you install the two hex nuts. Tighten
the hex nuts just snug enough to hold the neck, because you
may need to move the neck a little.
Don’t use a socket wrench with a right angle drive to tighten
the nuts onto the neck bolts — you could get too much
torque and possibly crack the heel, or pull a bolt out of the
heel!
Instead, make your own nut driver as we did. We made a
long-handled nut driver from a deep-well, square-drive 7/16"
socket, and a #3 Phillips screwdriver that fit the 1/4" drive per-
fectly
(39)
. Use tape to hold the socket onto the screwdriver
shaft (or do a little grinding and the screwdriver tip will force
in there permanently).
Also use a small piece of tape to hold the hex nut into the
socket as you reach into the body to start the nut onto the
bolt. Don’t over-tighten the nuts — the amount of pressure
you can apply with your thumb and fingers is probably
plenty
(40)
.
Check that the neck is on center to the top’s centerline by
holding a long straightedge against the edges of the finger-
board and extending to the tail block. Do this on both the
bass and treble sides, one edge of the fingerboard at a time.
Make pencil marks representing this fingerboard projection,
and then measure in from each mark to the center. Ideally,
these two measurements will be the same. Our treble side
was about 1/32" too close to the center, so we removed the
neck and used a rat-tail file to slightly enlarge the holes in the
neck block. This allowed us to move the neck over a tiny bit
toward the treble side.
Final assembly and setup
39.
We made a long-handled nut driver from a deep-well, square-
drive 7/16" socket, and a #3 Phillips screwdriver that fit the 1/4"
drive perfectly.
40.
The amount of pressure you can apply with your thumb and
fingers is probably plenty.
