The elusive flat and square
A few months back I leveled the fretboard as best I could and glued on the binding. I then scraped the binding flush and perfectly square and moved on.
HA! no, this is why progress has been so slow the past couple months. I've been busily chasing rounded edges all over the top, bottom, and nut edge of the fretboard with very little to show for it. Round and round I've gone, using several tools and techniques: sandpaper on a big hand plane, smaller sanding blocks, razor blades, chisels, X-acto #24, triangle files, you name it. Regardless, I would roll over the softer binding. This is marginally acceptable on the top, but on the bottom you pay for sloppiness with a glue line. At the nut edge you pay with a visible gap.
I wonder if my technique will ever be methodical and good enough to eliminate the heartache. Some guys describe the whole process in one simple sentence, "I profiled the fretboard on the bandsaw and sanded the edges smooth and true." How nice.
Other surprises included realizing I had worked one end .020" thinner than the other, discovering the peghead veneer was not glued on the headstock quite square to the neck center line after all, and almost filing through the thin neck veneer.
I almost quit the project and bought a Goodtime!
It's all been very educational and character building. I'm calling it done... maybe.
The board looks and feels sweet now that it's pretty well sanded smooth. It's going on the neck permanently soon. Pray for no glue lines.