I kept making minor errors or, alternatively, design changes to several necks in succession. One neck somehow got an extra dot at the 11th fret (Don’t ask). Another neck was contoured further up the neck, ending closer to the body join than I wanted– I used to hang 15 frets off the body, but now I’m going to do 13 so the bridge sits deeper in the top’s field. But I absent-mindedly used the old shaping template and so rounded things to fret 15 — so, I had to start again. Another just looked like the wrong color or grain pattern to go with the ovankol, it was weird and didn’t feel right. It would look fine with a maple body, but not ovankol. These other necks will all get used… on future guitars… but this is the one I’m going to use for the Ovankol box.
Once a neck makes it through my rigorous QA (har de har, 11th fret?) I brand it. With a branding iron. Another opportunity to screw up! But this time it worked with a nice imprint.
Now, the frets go on. Old school. Rackety packety. More later this week.