Lots of work around the house / yard yesterday, so I didn't get to the CBG until late.

Avid fans will recall that I cut three slots too wide with a high dollar manual miter box from Lowe's before smarting up and cutting the rest of them with a very narrow-bladed Stanley imitation Japanese pull saw.  Next I sanded down the fret board enough to fill the wide slots with sanding dust and then filled them in with glue in the hope that it would be strong enough to hold the frets in a narrower sawed kerf.

It appears to have worked.

I tapped them in with a tack hammer and followed that up with a home made "poor man's fret clamp."

Love that red oak!

I filed down the raggedy ends with a flat file, but with all of one side and all but three of the other side completed I realized that I should have used my Dremel tool to at least knock them down to about the neck level and saved quite a bit of time.  Live and learn.  I think that even with the Dremel tool for rough work I'd use the file at the end to dress them all equal and at equal angles.  Which I did on both sides.

A view of the CBG so far, with the fret board laid in place.

Be kind and don't mention that I laid the fret board in end-for-end with the skinny frets up by the nut and the wide frets down by the box.  I figured that out this morning.  Like I said, I was really tired after a long day's hard yard work.  It's not glued in place, I promise!

A close-up view of the notch the nut will fit into.  The nut and bridge will be red oak, too, with the grain running across the guitar.  I have a plan to put a rod pickup in the bridge and then run a brass plate over the top of it to carry the vibrations from the strings down to the pickup; stay tuned and find out whether it works.

I got a hundred dollar order in from C. B. Gitty today, but like a moron forgot to order internal electronics for the guitar.  Or guitars.  Ordered that stuff night before last but I'll be darn lucky if it comes in time to not hold me up.  We'll see.