Ready for frets

The markers are leveled and the board is sanded, ready to press in the frets.

Here's the head end, beveled and tapered for the break angle over the zero fret. The grooves help keep the strings aligned in the absence of a normal fret, at least in theory. If it doesn't work out in real life, I'll just cut a notch behind the fret line and put in a traditional nut. You can also see the ends of the graphite bars and the truss rod, as well as some unsightly staining from the epoxy used to glue in the graphite.

I put in markers up to the 24th fret, it seemed silly to put one in the 27th. The grain in the ebony is pretty visible in this pic, it was invisible until I got to 400-grit sandpaper. The edges of the fingerboard aren't sanded yet, you can still see a mark from the neck taper cut just in front of the 21st fret slot.