any downside to gluing neck to body BEFORE gluing the fretboard onto neck?

[VonPrikler]

I am in the process of a 59 LP type build, and was wondering if there is any downside to gluing the neck to the body BEFORE gluing the fretboard onto the neck. Any input would be greatly appreciated - thanks!

 

[mdr40z]

hard to get the seam perfect

 

[gator payne]

Great chance to have glue creep and the fretboard end up out of square with the neck. just a 1/4 mm or so at the nut can mean tens of mm's of out of center alignment at the bridge.

 

[Ole'Lefty]

I'm kind of with Gator here-but, I use a simple pair of small pins in index holes drilled within fret slots-afterwards, install the two frets with pins removed.. More importantly, it is a nightmare to get your airgap(which results in final neck angle) at the bridge position for a certainty. Then there are the potential issues of adjusting relief/ backbow that the fretboard may impart to the neck.

After all of that pessimism, there are many guitars built in that order;the successful ones are done by veteran builders who have developed a system to account for these variations. One of the positives is that you can plane out any tongue hump for the last 6 (six)frets of the FB/Body joint.

How is this for equivocating?

 

[bruce bennett]

I've done it successfully several times... you can see how and with explainations in my http://www.mylespaul.com/forums/luthiers-corner/137017-les-paul-custom-rescue.html thread.

if your working on a not yet completed guitar (ie. bridge location is undrilled) then I'd say better to not do it that way.

 

[schoeftinger]

In his Unicorn build, Juha Ruokangas glued the neck and body before the fretboard...
An awesome build, btw...

 

[VonPrikler]

Thanks for the input, guys. I figure I might have a better shot at getting the fretboard in the correct north-south location vs. the body this way.