Quote:
Originally Posted by g'ter guy
Very funny! but as far as knowing what goes into to it, like I said, I have a pretty good idea as to what goes into it on paper, but I've not had a lot of experience actually building them. The way I plan on doing it is first, after having templates made for the slotting, truss rod rout, tunning machine holes, and overall shape (I have PDFs), using a band saw cut out the shape of the neck in a 1" thick piece of wood. Then I plan on cutting the Fret slots and after the slots are cut, I'll radius the fretboard with a pre-radiused 8" sanding block, starting with 80 grit and going to 320. Then I'm going to rout for the truss rod by making several passes with my router and a 3/8" router bit. After that I'm either going to use a rasp, band saw, or an angle grinder to take off the meat of the neck and start shaping it, finishing the shaping with a file and sand paper. then I'll use some Maple scrap I have to make a skunk stripe, which is why I want to use a darker wood and not use Maple. A rounded file, some sand paper, and maybe a belt sand would be used for the contours at the headstock and heel. Going back to the Truss rod, I'd be using a Martin style that I plan on making myself with a 1/4" threaded rod, a 1/4" hex screw, a t-nut, an aluminum u-channel, and a rod connecting nut. once that is complete I'll install it with epoxy, making sure to keep the epoxy off of the rod's threads. I have several preslotted nuts I can utilize as well.
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My necks aren't much different than a log with frets. I don't use a truss rod, I use thick dry quartersawn wood. Truss rods interfere with tone, IMHO.
Think about it, forget what's commonplace for a moment. If you take a known tonewood like mahogany and run a channel down it. Will it tap tone the same?
No. It becomes higher pitched and dissonant. Now add a uchannel where the rod is surrounded by air and glue and cover that with a thin skunk stripe from the back.
Still think that neck is going to tap the same? nah.
People take perfectly good pieces of wood and make them bricks.
Better to carve a neck that is super meaty and get used to it, IMHO, than a wizard thin neck that needs a piece of metal buttressing the strings.
I wish I had a caliper to measure the thickness of my necks. by eye with a t- square my neck at the nut is 1 and 3/8ths and a good 2 inches at the body join.
The nut width is 2 inches, 2 5/8ths at the 24th fret.
bajaa's dad