The boudaries of the dovetail, except for that angle, were previously marked on the heelblock of the neck, and inscribed with knife lines. The next step is to cut the dovetail tenon out. I use a fine cut dovetail saw for this.

 

 

 

 

 

The other side is next.

 

 

 

 

Then the cheeks of the neck heel, where that angle was marked.

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, the bottom of the tenon must be cut.

 

 

 

And the final result.

 

 

And the corresponding video for this operation.

 

 

Edited June 28, 2025Jun 28 by Handfoolery

Thanks very much for looking and commenting on my thread! Next step is the mortise in the body.

Thanks Mike for the pictures, explanations and the accompanying video. All quite interesting. Very precise and detailed work.

 

BTW, beautiful day and setting there when you made the video. Pray you're feeling better today.

Thanks, Gramps.

It indeed was a lovely day, and I am moving much better today, thanks for your prayers; I covet every one of those I can get.

Hoping to get out to that bench on another lovely day today. Depends on what the Better Half needs.

Ok, so we cut the dovetail tenon; now it's time for the mortise.

I marked out the mortise on the body, and then I start sawing to the lines. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 5, 2025Jul 5 by Handfoolery

This is basically a blind dovetail, so I can only use the saw for some of this. To complete it I treat it like the mortise for a mortise and tenon joint. In other words, I use other means to remove the bulk of the waste before moving to the chisel. 

In this case I hog material away with a forstner bits in a hand drill.

 

 

 

And finish with chisel work.

 

 

 

This takes some time, but it is hand work; best not to get in much of a hurry. It ain't power tools, but the edges of my hand tools will cut you long and deep if you screw up. If they aren't sharp, they aren't worth sqwat.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 5, 2025Jul 5 by Handfoolery

The completed mortise.

 

 

And here with the tenon.

 

 

Something to note is that the mortise is about a 16th to an eighth deeper and taller than the tenon. This is on purpose because if the face of the tenon contacts the back wall of the mortise, or if the tenon bottoms out in the bottom of the mortise the pieces will be pretty much impossible to fit together. If you don't notice this is happening you can end up taking too much wood out of the joint in an attempt to get it to fit properly until you discover your error. That's technical for bad. Thank you for looking at and commenting on my thread. Happy Independence Day!

That's all for this evening. Here is the corresponding vid.

 

 

Building a guitar is on my bucket list!  I've played for almost 50 years, now it's time to learn to build one.  I like your videos!

5 hours ago, Chirogyro said:

Building a guitar is on my bucket list!  I've played for almost 50 years, now it's time to learn to build one.  I like your videos!

Thanks a lot, I appreciate that.

You should definitely try your hand at guitar building. Playing an instrument you built your self is something very satisfying, even if that instrument has a few "warts" on it. 

I recommend William Cumpiano's book, as well as a  site called jsevy.com. If that is not ok to post then @John Morris, my apologies.

Those two resources were invaluable to me.

Thanks for the progress pics and the video Mike. Made me nervous just watching the mortise cut-out in the body. 

Edited July 8, 2025Jul 8 by Grandpadave52

16 minutes ago, Grandpadave52 said:

Thanks for the progress pics and the video Mike. Made me nervous just watching the mortise cut-out in the body. 

Thanks Gramps. And yeah I need to make like a body clamp of some kind the. The biggest problem with it is if you crank down too tight..   

Time to move to rough shaping the outline of the neck. To finalize the outline I use a router template. 

 

 

But there's a lot to do before that can happen.

I use the template to mark the outline onto the neck blank. So, place the template onto the neck blank.

 

 

Clamp it down

 

 

making sure it is centered well

 

 

 

I use the marking knife to mark around the template

 

 

I love a marking knife. Mine's just an old paring knife I reshaped. There's a video on that somewhere on my channel. Once again, thank you, Paul Sellers.I use a jig saw to initially cut out the waste prior to routing. The heel is 4" tall'; too deep. So I carry the lines over with the marking knife

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carry them over the bottom.

 

 

 

And it gets the teeth.