Making Some Clever Jigs and Routing out the Sides of the Neck

In order to accurately rout out the channels in the neck (into which strengthening "splints" of new wood will be glued) I needed to make some jigs to accurately guide the router along the neck. I though long and hard and the sequence below was the simplest way I could come up with.

I used an old piece of kitchen worktop upside down on the bench as a base board, then screwed a planed softwood batten to the worktop on either side of the neck. As the neck is slightly tapered and the softwood is hard up against where the headstock flares out this effectively held the neck in a fixed position.

The softwood needed to be packed up underneath with some hardboard so that the top of the softwood was at the same level as the top of the neck.

Using my spiffy new router, I made a jig out of hardboard. The channels will guide the router down each side of the neck.

The jig was taped to the battens to locate it (see picture further down)

This bush attaches to the bottom of the router. The projecting part sits in the slot in the jig. 

After routing, this shows the channels that have been cut in each side of the neck. The line at the bottom of the hole is the bottom of the break in the neck. On the left hand side there was so little wood remaining that it broke away. I'll fill this with some sawdust and glue filler.

I have collected some of the sawdust, so I can mix it with superglue to use as a filler in any unsightly gaps that I end up with! (I collected some finer sawdust from sawing to use for this afterwards, which was much better.)

After stripping the jig away, the channels look like this. I'm quite pleased with that for a first attempt.

Those paying close attention will note that I have changed the plan here (it's my guitar - I can do what I want!) I was planning to rout and splint each side separately to keep as much strength in the neck as possible, but decided I'd do it really carefully but both sides at the same time. Mainly because I am impatient.