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Not throwing in the towel yest but I can’t figure out how to fret saw cut the side of the dart where it meets the headstock, without getting chipout/ tear out when two planes geometry meet (angled side wall plane to meet the horizonal plane of the headstock) . A router base won’t clear the neck shaft or I would build a pattern and cut with router…

I’m using ply cutting guides that clamp onto the headstock and hold the saw at the correct angles, (safety planer up to the dart line as far as it will go, fretsaw a straight edge of the dart, guide to cut the angle of the side of the dart towards the headstock, flush cut saw on the headstock (safety plane wont get all the way to the bottom edge of the dart line. I’ve attached some pictures.


Which cut to make first- down, towards the headstock. or horizontal toward the dart?
I’ve spent so much time on this

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

The angles are cut with a 45 degree saw guide , I don’t have a pic of with a stiff fret saw. It’s basically a clamp-on straightedge stick with a 45…

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

If I understand your question correctly, I carve the angled side faces of the dart with a 1/2" chisel so no worries about saw marks. I start from a very rough block where the dart will be located that's left over after thicknessing the headstock from the back side with a Safety Planer (first photo). Not saying a Safety Planer is needed, just that a rough block that's bigger than the final dart works as a starting point. I do about 95% of the shaping with the chisel and finish off with small wood sanding blocks with adhesive-backed sandpaper on them. For final blending of the wide end of the dart into the neck shaft, I often use a riffler file. The headstock in the second photo still has some refining of the transition to be done to smooth it out.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

THank you, thats exactly how my rough diamond looks- I used the SafT Planer this time.
THats amazing to me how that was done with a chisel.
I haven't done it on a neck blank yet, just 2x4s and poplar. Maybe rift cut mahogany will be easier to carve than flat-sawn 2x4s.....

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

I've done it on Mahogany, Khaya, Peruvian Walnut, and curly Maple necks and they all worked out fine. The only thing I found I had to watch out for a couple times was that the wood would carve easier in one direction than the other.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

First, there are some very good photo essays on UMGF's site, so start there with Mr. Bruce Sexauer's and Mr. John Arnold's guidance in mind. And because we were doing several necks at s time at Greenridge, we developed router jigs to thickness the back surface of the headstock and define the dart. I found it easiest to make the rough vertical cuts to define the extent of the dart, then the plane from the turn of the neck to the back surface of the headstock, then the sides of the dart. A blindingly sharp 2" wide short-bodied chisel does a nice job of cleaning up those show surfaces on the dart. Also keep in mind that there was quite a bit of variation in how those darts ended up over the course of Martin production, as they were hand-cut... so a bit of height variation is not cause to reject the part.

I believe you will find some discussions here as well re: roughing, shaping, and final carving of the dart beyond what has been offered in this thread.

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

Ah yes, for reference:

• viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=54680&hilit=final+carving+of+the+dart
  
  
• https://umgf.com/carving-the-martin-volute-t136217.html

Time and technology have not been kind to a lot of the picture access, but I was able to save them locally.

From reviewing your post from 2013 again, I now realize to make the jig sides taller, in order to clear the neck shaft.

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

Keep in mind that the original dart was a structural element; part of the 'modified bridle joint' that held the separate head piece onto the neck. The dart in that joint is actually part of the neck, and a different piece of wood from the head. The flat back surface of the head is already defined when the joint goes together, and the sides of the dart can be carefully shaped, down to the point where the dart glues to the head, by hand.

As Alan mentioned, the original "dart" was part of the neck which was separate from the peghead. When I carve the dart I use a sacrificial peghead so I don't have to worry about the chisel gouging the back of the peghead as I carve the dart. The Original design looks different from the "false darts" being made on one piece necks today.

Martin switched from the two-piece construction where the dart was an attempt to hide the joinery in the base of the dart and side returns, to the one-piece neck with carved dart in 1916. This transition was enabled due to the move from Spanish cedar to Honduras mahogany as neck material, with the greater strength of the later wood allowing a single-piece neck. With the dual ornamental/'joinery camouflage' purpose of the dart obviated, Martin relegated darts to the 28 series and above. I suspect that even in the 'teens, martin fan boys likely resisted any substantive changes... were it not for the lack of a suitable forum, I suspect we'd have a contemporaneous record of the hate and angst re: lack of a dart on the Style 21 and below, as well as the distantly related hue and cry which for a dartless Style 35.

As mentioned earlier in the thread, darts vary. They range from the longer, quite graceful style seen on the guitars from the birds-mounth joint era and immediately after to the squat, rather stubby variants seen on 1970's D-28's. Also worth noting is the narrower profile seen on guitars with slotted headstocks even after the paddle heads' darts got rather squat. The variability across both the years and craftsmen create a bit of a 'get out of jail free' card for dart aficionados.

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

There's always this approach, in case things got out of hand. Of course, that didn't happen here.

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com