Best laid plans...

The neck with the joint in the headstock looks perfect. I will not even need a backstrap. It sanded up nice and is ready for trussrod and headstock wings. I ordered the wood for the tops of these 2 guitars this week but it won't be in until maybe Monday next week. When I resaw the tops I will use a bookmatched piece of the top for the headstock plate.

Over the years I have learned that sometimes things just need to be scrapped. After reviewing the scarf joints I noticed that the stripes on the scarf neck were 1mm off. Then looking at the placement of the scarf I felt it was too close to the headstock. You can't see it very well in the picture but you should be able to tell that the scarf is just too close.





So instead of trying to fix it with a 1/4" headplate (silly idea anyway) and live with the slight offset in the strips I asked the bandsaw to help. Yes I cut the nice headstock off and grafted a new one on. Since this is a prototype I decided to not wast a nice piece of flame maple and instead used a piece of birdseye that I had laying around for just this type of event. While not ideal for looks it is always better to be functionally correct before being aesthetically uniform.






I went looking for a fretboard for the project and didn't really find anything I liked so I grabbed a piece of coco off the rack and sawed it up. Since I am using thinner fretboards on the S9 series I got 4 out of a nice 5/4 piece. While not as wild as some of my previous boards I think this one will do. Of course it will "Orange Up" in a few weeks as the build progresses.