Got some great advice from Aaron Brown over at Blackwater Guitars. He said to radius before I bind. Now looking at it, it seems simple but had I not followed this advice I would have been pulling my hair out trying to find a way to deepen the slots after radiusing to 16in. Thanks Aaron.

I also used Joel’s method of pressing in frets using the horizontal press since I had a small portable one. Worked pretty well. I’d filled a glue syringe with some water and titebond and used that in the slots to take up space around the tang. I used a dab of thick CA on the ends where I clipped the tangs for the bindings so it’ll stick to the edges of the binding when I clamp down. All seems well.

The darker pictures are with mineral spirits applied to show figure.