I’ve just started work on part of a build that I am trying my best to keep a positive attitude towards no matter how beaten by it I might feel at times.

Some of you who have been following along here for a little while will know all too we’ll that I simply consider myself a luthier in training, I make no bones about it as I know builders both local and from various parts of the world with over 20 years plus on me who still won’t call themselves luthiers no matter how amazing their guitars are. Anyways, I’m rambling on.

I was in the workshop a day or so ago, looking through my raw timber stockpile, I was looking for some timber that would serve nicely in size and feel for a neck to join a fretboard I have already made. Really simply I was having no luck, I do have some great slabs that will be great necks but nothing for what I had already made (yes a slight oversight in hindsight). So I was faced with a small dilemma. Thickness (shaving the timber down to size) by hand so that it would work or, come up with another option.

I mostly work with hand tools and while yes you can thickness a piece of timber by hand, I was really not feeling up to it at the time. I decided to use what I had picked out - some Tasmanian Blackwood and try something different. What I ended up going with, and what I’m still working on is a sunken fretboard. Really simply it’s like having a bound neck except the fretboard, instead of being routed and having binding placed around it, is set into another piece of timber.

It’s something I have never tried and honestly was not planing on trying for some time but in the spirit of at least trying everything once, I figured why the hell not.

Everything measured out it was now time to start.

So here is where things are at… I started with a chisel to get it started, then after thinking I was making life hard for myself, I picked up the hand drill and made some holes and chiseled some more. I honestly don’t have much of an idea, what I am doing, but I’m making progress slowly. It’s something I a purposefully not rushing and I hope I can keep that mentality, it’s hard when all you want is to see a finished product.

Until next long winded post.