Because I know I am prone to mistakes on my projects, I decided to use some of the poplar lumber I have to practice on before risking the expensive lumber that will be in the final product. With that in mind, I began the neck construction.
The first thing I did was to take a piece of 1”x4” poplar and cut it down to about 3 feet long. From this piece I was to cut both the neck and the headstock. Both of these are to be at a 15 degree angle where they will be joined. My first mistake (I told you I make mistakes) was cutting this piece at an angle of 75 degrees instead of 15 degrees. Oops. Realizing this is when I also realized that the 15 degree angle would be much tougher than I thought to cut. My book says to cut with a hand saw and plane the cuts smooth. I think this is much more difficult than with power tools and much less likely to give the intended results. So I started looking at my options. The first option was to use the table saw. To do this, I have to stand the wood up vertically as I move over the blade. This involves making a jig and cutting one edge at a time. Possible, but not a perfect option.
My second option was the radial arm saw. I found that I could clamp both pieces together along with some other wood to prevent splintering and make the cut through both pieces at once. Doing it this way guarantees that the cuts are at the same angle. So I set out along this road. This worked great, but with two small problems to fix. One is that the body of the saw bumped into some of the wood I used in my clamped bundle. At that point the cut was over even though there was a small corner of the headstock that didn’t get cut. I had to chisel and scrape to even that out. The second problem was that, because of my original angle screw up, my headstock is now a little too short. Oh well, that is what the practice run is all about, I guess.
Disregarding the headstock size, I went ahead and glued the headstock to the neck as described. Here again, there are lessons to be learned. I’m not sure now square the sides of my neck wood are; I never really tried to square them up. When I clamped this on to a piece of wood for the glue-up it seemed to want to roll one way or the other. I should probably square the sides next time. (In fact, I think my table saw blade had not been straight up and down when I ripped the piece). When I started gluing, I found out that my selection of clamps is not quite good enough. I was able to securely clamp the top of the joint (as seen when the assembly is on its side for gluing), but the bottom was not well clamped because my small clamps wouldn't reach the bottom of the joint. And as a consequence I don’t think that side of the joint is glued tightly enough. I could improve this by notching out the board on which I glued so as to allow my small clamps to come in from the bottom. Also, my clamps left impressions on the wood so next time I need to use wood between the joint and the clamps.
Finally, the headstock is supposed to be planed to 1/2”. I didn't do this before gluing. Next time I'll plane it that way BEFORE cutting the 15 degree cut so as not to damage that cut.
Here's how my poplar version of the scarf joint at the headstock turned out. Remember that I'll redo it with lessons learned and using mahogany wood.
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