With the edge guide adjusted we're ready to rout. Here's the neck blank after routing the channel and after bandsawing the rough shape. This particular neck will be a vintage style with the adjustment at the heel. The maple I bought was a wide board and being thrifty, I am trying to get as many necks as possible from it. That's the reason for the odd shape of the blank. The shallow point of the channel was routed close to 0.495 in. deep per the Strat book.
I made a neck template from 3/4 in. MDF. This thick template allows me to start the shape routing with a shallow pass on the router table. I do the neck shape routing on the router table using a pattern following bit (the bearing is below the cutter when mounted in the table) making several shallow passes .......... 1/4 in. or less. Here's the neck and template after shape routing. Here's I'm transfering the centerline and nut line from the template to the neck.
With the template still attached, I mark the tuner hole location with a 1/8 in. bit.
After marking the tuner hole location, I remove the template and drill the tuner holes. I stop before going all the way through. I'm drilling for Kluson style tuners.
