 
The neck is made of Honduras mahogany, with ebony peghead plate
and fingerboard. I elected to glue up the neck blank, as opposed to
cutting it from one piece, to avoid the short cross-grain situation
where the peghead angles away from the fingerboard plane. I purchased
the 16" radius fingerboard arch plane (actually a long, concave
sanding block) from the Guitarmaker's Connection at the Martin
factory. I used this on the prototype/practice neck, and decided on a
tighter arch, so bought the 12" radius model, and this was just what
I had envisioned.
The scale is the standard Martin 25.4 "dreadnaught" scale.
Stewart-Macdonald sells a nice scale ruler with several scales on it,
and it worked fabulously. The fingerboard is 1-3/4" wide at the nut.
I used a standard medium-gauge fretwire also from Stewart-Macdonald,
and gold Schaller tuners; I later replaced the gold tuner knobs with
imitation pearl knobs (Mother-Of-Toilet-Seat) also purchased from StewMac.
There is a truss rod in the neck, with access to the adjusting nut
at the heel end. I was unwilling to compromise the strength of the
peghead/neck joint by routing the slot for the nut up there. What
I neglected to do (for fear of weakening the top) was drill a hole
through the upper transverse brace which would allow me much easier
access to the adjusting nut through the soundhole. Fortunately, the
neck has been extremely stable over the nearly two years since the
guitar was completed, and truss rod adjustments have only been
necessary after changing from light to medium gauge strings.
Inspiration for the peghead inlays came from a 1993 camping trip
in Colorado. We had spent five nights at Golden Gate Canyon State
Park, where the coyotes howled nightly in the distance. The following
weekend we stayed two nights at a campground inside Rocky Mountain
National Park; Saturday was the night of the full moon. Archie Bunker
was right when he said "you can't buy beer, you can only rent
it" ... and at about 4:00 a.m. I crawled from the tent to find a
bush. The full moon hanging above Long's Peak was awesome; the
range of mountains glowed dimly in the moonlight. In the opposite
direction stars literally jumped out of the clear sky. One of the
most beautiful sights I have ever seen.
The signature at the top of the peghead is pearl, as is the moon
and the snowy peak of the mountain; the mountain itself and the
wolf are abalone. The wolf track position markers on the fingerboard
are pearl. The mountain is made of three pieces; two form the mountain
itself, plus the pearl peak. The wolf is four pieces; the head, the
front leg, the body, and the tail; some places where the pieces meet
(the upper edge of the tail) were beveled slightly so I could fill
them with black and leave a visible line. By far the trickiest part
of the inlay project was fitting the head of the wolf to the body;
much tedious filing and sanding to create a tight fit.
The paw print position markers were nearly abandoned in favor of
plain round markers, since I'd already inlayed the peghead without
hosing it up, and I felt maybe I should quit while I was ahead. My
wife convinced me otherwise, though, and I'm glad she did. Each of
the paws took about 45 minutes to cut and file into shape. The paw
prints are each one individual piece of pearl; lines were scribed
and filled with black to create the pads and nails, leaving the
illusion that each paw is actually nine pieces. Life is just too short!
Once the pieces of pearl and abalone were cut and fitted, I spot-glued
them onto the ebony in position; scribed around them with a sharp
pointed scriber, then carefully popped them back off. Next I
colored across the scribe marks with a yellow-colored pencil,
which left yellow in the scribe marks; the ebony was hard enough
that the yellow didn't really "stick" to the flat surfaces; so I
was left with a clear yellow outline that was very accurate.
Cavities for the shell material were cut with a Dremel Moto-tool
in the Dremel router base; next time I try something like this I'll
invest in the slick metal router base that Stewart-Macdonald now
sells. I routed right up to the yellow line until it just disappeared,
test-fitting the pieces often. The carbide downcut bits work great
even on hard ebony, but I was prone to pushing a little too quickly
and breaking them. The inlays were left 1/64-1/32" above the surface
of the ebony, then block-sanded flush. I cut fret slots in the
fingerboard before inlaying, so next step was to radius the fingerboard,
pound in the frets, then shape the back of the neck.
The neck is quite thin and comfortable, but the 1-3/4" width took
some getting used to. Now the additional space is so comfortable
that I have difficulty adjusting to guitars with even slightly
narrower fingerboards. When first completed, I set the guitar
up with synthetic Tusq® material at the nut and saddle; it was
overly bright, so I replaced the Tusq® with bone after about
two weeks, and I'm still using the bone today. I may soon set
it up with fossilized ivory, see how that sounds.
Aside from the unpleasant thought that the entire guitar would
possibly self-destruct after stringing it up, my biggest fear
was that the intonation would be poor. Aside from the the usual
slight tendency of the 6th string to play sharper as you go up
the neck, the intonation is great. Harmonics are bright and clear,
and overall the guitar is very responsive to dynamics and attack.
I cut a compensated saddle, making full use of the 3/32" thickness
of the bone saddle material, and this solved the 6th-string sharpness
issue.
The guitar took exactly three months to complete; I quit keeping
track of time spent a few weeks into the project, so I haven't a
clue how many hours were involved. Basically it was every waking
moment that I wasn't working or eating.
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