| Here's the neck in the table vice, prepared to cut and sand down to the line I drew on the headstock. I used a handheld jigsaw to cut the corner off the top, but I couldn't hold the head down enough to use that. My Dad helped with the hand sawing! | |
| Here's a closer view of the headstock before I did any cutting. I spent quite a bit of time drawing the lines that I used, and they were each calculated carefully. It's good to sketch on the head itself to get an idea of what it will look like, but make sure you know you want the shape you've drawn before you cut. | |
| One Last closeup of the head before I hack away at it. | |
| I lied, here's the neck in the vice again. Uh, as a general shop rule, make sure whatever your sawing with a handsaw is firmly secured. | |
| Here's the headstock after the handsaw. I got as close as I could to the lines because we don't have any kind of mechanical sander. I recommend 30 grit sandpaper if you need to get rid of some solid wood like in the valleys here. Sorry about the blurriness, I didn't want it in this tutorial, but it's the only picture I got before I sanded. | |
| Here she is after I sanded the valleys out. Like I said, I used 30 grit to get through the solid parts. Even though the 30 grit is extremely rough, it took me a very long time and a lot of elbow grease to get this close. This left the sides very rough, so I need to finish it off later with higher and higher grits to smooth it off. | |
| A macro shot of the bottom of the head. You can see the jaggedness that the 30 grit left on the sides. | |
| Here is the first angle on the sanded side that I sanded with 60 and 100 grit to show you what the whole thing will look like after it's done. | |
| Another shot of the sanded side in various states of unsandedness. | |
| Here's the view from the front after I sanded with the 30 grit. I later sanded the whole side down to the drawn line with 60 grit, which took about as long as the 30 did to eat through the first of the wood. | |
| A final shot of the front before I sanded it down more. | |
| Here's the head after I cleaned it up with the 60 grit sandpaper. There are still a few kinks like the little lip in the first valley, and none of the mountaintops are as round as they will be, but the shape is done for the most part. | |
| This is a side view, and you can see that it has changed drastically from 30 to 60 grit. There are no longer any large gashes, and each face is fairly smooth. | |
| Here's an even closer view of the side. In this one, you can see my sand lines going vertically across the faces. I will proceed from here using higher-grit sandpaper going horizontally, or with the grain. I don't recommend sanding against the grain, but it was the only way I could get enough momentum to do any good. | |
| Here's the head all smoothed out. It's finally shaped and ready to be assembled. | |
| First, I need to push the busings into the pre-drilled holes in the headstock. The holes were drilled so that the bushings would fit very snugly, so you need to use a little force, I used a hammer, to get them in. The one on the right is how they should look when they're installed. | |
| There are the tuners that came with my kit. I wanted to use gold ones that I bought, but the holes were too far apart on the headstock. Even though I had to use the silver ones, I wanted some gold color on the head to tie the brass on the body in, so I took the covers off. Open machines are okay, and they're definitely better looking, but you just need to make sure to oil them about once a year to prevent them from sticking. | |
| Here's the back of the headstock all finished. To install the machines, I found which machine fit best in which hole, and then screwed them in in order. | |
| Next I needed to put on the string trees. Since the headstock of a strat is parallel with the fingerboard, the higher strings need the string trees to keep them held against the nut. When stringing your guitar, make sure to put them under the little arms. | |
| Here's the headstock all finished. |