Step 5: A Close Shave

After the disaster of the box, I thought that rather than hiding and doing something easy, I'd be better off stretching myself and braving the woodwork side of things again. I should explain, when it comes to woodwork I am a complete no-hoper, and have in the last forty years managed to achieve absolutely nothing. IKEA shelves fall to bits, curtain rails don't stay up and basically if it can go wrong, it has already happened to me, I just ain't noticed yet. So despite managing to put a guitar kit together without killing anybody (not least because I was being guided by my six-year-old son at times) I can't say that building a CBG is entirely a natural thing for me to do. And woodwork is bottom of the list of things that are wise for me to try, as far as I'm concerned.

There, got that out of my system.

Next then, I thought it would be best to get all of the woodwork stuff out of the way as soon as possible, and being as the part that was worrying me most was the thinning of the neck (so that it fits inside the box and lets the lid close - you remember), I figured that was the place to be.

Thinning the neck out (I'm sure there is a technical name I should be using for this), I see it as being three stages, so that is what I've done.

a) Marking your territory
First up I decided that it probably made sense to cut the edges of the trench so that there is a fixed line. I've decided to call it a trench by the way. No good reason, I just have to stop writing 'thingie' at some point in my life and this seemed as good an opportunity as any.

But to cutting the trench - to do this, I clamped the wood in my workbench and using a junior hacksaw carefully cut along the two lines I'd drawn to mark the edge of the box. It really was carefully for once as well, and more by luck than judgment I remembered to stop cutting at the right depth.

Job jobbed then, and all I need do is manage to remove the wood in between the two cuts.

b) A Rush and a Push
Yep, I'm running out of amusing titles for all these sub-sections.
At this stage I figured that removing a good amount of the wood, even if it is only roughly, would probably be a good idea. Assuming I don't take too much and work within the limits, as it were, I could then finish off with a file.

To start with, I went and invested a couple of quid in what is apparently called a 'rasp'. This is like a file but a bit more hardcore, and promises to get stuck in before the file comes along and does the finessing. It seems to work OK too, and despite the fact that they call this mahogany/sapiele stuff a hard wood for a very good reason, it didn't take long to get close enough to the shape we wanted - 90% of the way anyhow.

Cool. My new best friend, a rasp. A Snoop Dog among the hen house of Timberlake files.

c) Can't believe It Ain't Butter
Well, as you have probably guessed, the filing of the trench was the final stage of this little job, and didn't take long. One thing I'd read somewhere was that it could actually be a positive thing if the trench has a dip in it, so that the neck doesn't actually meet the top of the box all the way through. The theory being that it would allow for more movement of air, and therefore volume, if I remember rightly. Now I'm not sure if that is kosher or not, but I figured that it was an open goal of an excuse if I didn't manage to flatten the trench properly.

Still, I finished that little job and whilst it probably isn't perfect if you look closely, it was close enough I reckoned, and I'm pleased to report that I can now put the neck through the box, and close the lid. OK, there are still a couple of gaps, but I'm going to fill them with wood glue when the time comes to put this all together, so I'm not overly worried.

Result.