Uke build 6.0 - Neck: headstock veneer

I'm adding a rosewood veneer to the headstock to accommodate a decorative inlay later. The kit as delivered has stain on the headstock to match the rosewood fretboard. In the process of doing the inlay, I'll be excavating some wood which will dig in past the stain. I'm adding the veneer so that there will be a consistent appearance around the inlay.

Note: the headstock veneer and inlay, side marker dots, and binding are all extra steps I'm adding to this build in order to practice for a potential guitar build later. These are not part of the original kit, and add a lot of complexity to the project.

Here the veneer is glued and clamped to the headstock. I left a little channel for the nut to go later. The channel is actually a little small. I'll excavate some of the veneer material so that the back edge of the channel will be perpendicular to the fretboard instead of perpendicular to the headstock.


And now it's dry and out of the clamps. It's oversized, so time for planes, files, and sandpaper.


A small hand plane got things down to size for the sides. I used a drum sander (attachment for a drill) to get the top end of the overlap down to size.


Here it is done, less the final fine tuning with sanding blocks.


The veneer material wound up being a lot darker than the fretboard. It's not as bad as it appears in the photo (the flash washed out the fretboard), but it still needs to be addressed. I'm hoping that it will darken up with some lemon oil.

-A