Dovetail Cleanup w/ CNC

[Marty Jacobson]

Thought some of you might be interested in this. This is an old Slingerland archtop which I'm putting an OM neck on for a customer. It had been reset in the past, which had subsequently failed, and the dovetail was just generally chewed up. An earlier version of myself had attempted to save it by rebuilding the neck portion of the dovetail and cleaning up the neck block as well as possible, but it just didn't hold.

I was going to build a typical router jig for cutting the new dovetail, but I decided it would be easier and more flexible to just use the CNC. I cut a hole in the table of my machine, something I've been planning to do for a while, and mounted the instrument so it was supported and indexed above and below the table.

Then I measured everything carefully and started with the dovetail shifted out by ½”. I was able to tweak the code to get it dead center and to remove the minimum material necessary for solid new glue surfaces. And since I have the CAD for a matching dovetail, making a mating neck (with a working truss rod, etc.) should be a piece of cake.

[Timbofood]

Cool!

[atbuckner21]

I am in awe of you mechanically minded guys. Very very very cool work

[sunburst]

No criticism intended, it looks great, and we all do things our own way, but I have to wonder what part of that process you would have been in as I was finishing cleaning up the dovetail with a chisel.

[Marty Jacobson]

Indeed, John... I don't have the repair experience you do, so for me it was probably about the same investment of time either way. And this way I can be sure the neck will mate perfectly on the first try.

[Skip Kelley]

Nice work, Marty!

[Michael Lewis]

Marty, you make it look easy. I still fumble about and do it with fixtures and hand held router. I bet my set up was easier to figure out and make but yours will go much farther into the future. I'm a bit envious, but this is the path I chose.

[Tom Haywood]

Very nice, Marty!

[Pete Jenner]

Marty I tried to PM you but your mailbox is full.

[j. condino]

That is a nice simple solution to a problem that a lot of folks would tell you to get a much larger machine with more axis options and complications. Can we chop it up a bit larger and I'll bring by a few upright basses with blown out neck joints????

Marty is my technology hero.

j.
www.condino.com
www.kaybassrepair.com

[Marty Jacobson]

Sure James, but we'll have to cut a hole through to the crawlspace... :-)