Sticking my neck out...

I have decided also to make my neck out of maple to match my body somewhat.  That is to say, the body of the neck will be maple; the fretboard will be ebony.  I forgot to mention that part of Eunice's gift to me (via Nathan) was an ebony fretboard.  It is pre-slotted for frets, but I admit I don't remember how many frets it has.  I do know that it is a Gibson scale length.  Can someone tell me if Gibson used 24.75" or 24.65" scale length?  Is there a relationship between scale length and the number of frets?  Seems to me there should be.  (For those who don't know, the scale length is approximately the distance the strings vibrate.)  Also, is the headstock (the part with the tuning machines) connected to the neck or is it part of the same piece as the neck? One or two pieces of wood?

Ebony Fretboard with One Fret

The picture above shows the slots in the fretboard as well as what the fret wire looks like when it is in the slots.  I guess you could consider it cheating to use a pre-made fretboard (aka fingerboard).  The thing is, there is some math and/or patterning, as well as some very specific tools which I don't have at the shop needed to get the slots exactly in the right place.  If they are wrong, the guitar will never be in tune and then there is really no point.

So, right from the bat, I will tell you beforehand which parts of the guitar will be pre-fabricated.  I will not be making any of the pickups from scratch or switches or electronics.  I will be putting them in a special order which will require some soldering on my part (and already some from Nathan), but I will not be coiling my own wire around magnets.  I will not be making the fingerboard, nor the fret wire.  I will not be doing any metal-working at all.  So, no tuning machines or truss rod or plates or knobs.  All that stuff can be bought and I will not feel cheated by not making them from scratch.  Keep in mind, this is my first axe, so I can always do all these extras on a future project.

Anyway, I will have to vacuum bag the fingerboard to a maple neck at some point, so that leaves another piece of maple to buy.  The neck will be a set-in neck, not a bolt on or a through neck.  This just means that the neck doesn't just attach by means of some bolts (bolt on), nor does it pass all the way through the body as part of the body (through neck).  I was originally going to do a through neck, but I decided that it was more important for me to rear-mount all my hardware.  More on that some other post.