Fitting the Neck to the Body

I made a template out of fiberboard to rout the neck channel in the guitar body.  First I routed a test piece of pine.  I adjusted the template pieces several times, routing the pine deeper with each adjustment:

I glued the template pieces together when I got the neck to fit snuggly into place, like this :-D

Then I transferred the template to the guitar body:

To assure correct alignment, I inscribed pencil lines on the guitar body using the squared neck as a guide, just as I had done on the test piece of pine.  I extended those same lines on the template so I would be able to line it up on the guitar body.  It's ready to rout.

The routed channel below.  The router bit leaves curved corners, like on the right.  I squared them with a wood chisel, as I have started to do on the left corner here.

The neck fits like a glove into its channel.  The channel is 15/16ths" deep, which will make the fingerboard sit 3/8" above the body.

The neck is clamped while I drill four 1/2" holes for birch dowel pins.  This is no bolt-on neck.  Glue and dowel pins will make this perform like a neck-through guitar, sez me.  That's a Forstner bit in the drill press, drills clean holes.

This guitar is smokin'! Mahogany tends to burn when cut too fast.

Dowel pins in place, not glued yet:

Dowel pins glued into the neck.  Now I can glue on the fingerboard and finish shaping the neck.