Who is using Bill Scheltema's neck radius jig???

[Mojotron]

Originally Posted by CptRyg

And finally, some more shots of the half sanded neck with transitions. The transitions are pretty half-a$$ but I don't plan on wasting anymore time on this scrap. Besides I took too much off of each end when I did the radius to do it properly.

Next time I will build a truss jig and put some thought into how I can get a consistant 5/8" headstock. Still need a good template for fret slots too.

Unless I'm missing something that should be all I need to make an actual attempt.

Ya - on all of mine so far I did not realized that the transition should really start between the 1st and 2nd frets and a similar thing on the other end. When I did the transitions on my maple necks I realized that having to use such sharp angles was very difficult - next time I will leave myself more room so that making the transitions will be easier and look more like a Fender neck. I'll post some pictures too.

The headstock is a tough one. Many months ago I thought - if I just got a Wagner Safety Planner (WSP) that would do bodies, necks, and do the shaving on the headstock. I did all of my planing for my first neck with the WSP and it worked perfectly once I built the jig/table for it. But that was a lot of work, and did end up getting a thickness planer. The WSP does seem to be the right tool for precision planing as well as thicknessing the headstock. If you have a drill press that will spin at 2000-5000 RPM, the WSP would work for all guitar building planning needs IMO.

[BadHorsie]

What neck profile is Bills Jig producing in its stock form. C, Boat neck etc.

[52Tele_lover]

Has anyone made a soft V puck? are there any PDF's for em? and are there any 59 boat puck PDF's?

[Mojotron]

Originally Posted by BadHorsie

What neck profile is Bills Jig producing in its stock form. C, Boat neck etc.

It's the contour from a very early telecaster - I'm not sure what it's called. It's really beefy - like .95" at the first fret to 1" at the 12th fret.

[Mojotron]

Here's some pics from my first 2 maple necks. The contour matches the Warmoth '59 contour on my Warmoth tele: I've completed the shaping and radiusing of the fretboard and made my truss rods like the latest Warmoth's head-adjust rods too:

Here's a few pics of the better of the 2:




Here are the two side-by-side:

[Mojotron]

Originally Posted by 52Tele_lover

Has anyone made a soft V puck? are there any PDF's for em? and are there any 59 boat puck PDF's?

This one will work for a '59 contour:
http://mojotronics.com/images/Guitar...59_puck_10.pdf

Just shape it so that you have an extra .05" on the contour edge. I think I sanded my down to .02" from the line and it's a nice .85" at the 1st fret and .95 at the 12th fret. This all assumes a 1 11/16" nut.

From there, see the orange areas in the pdf, one could just take the image from the Warmoth WWW site and merge them onto these puck images.

Hope it helps - Bill's jig is pretty handy.

[Davecam48]

Hi All!

Please be gentle with me I joined this fine organisation TODAY! but have been using it as a research tool for a long time. I am in my early 60's and live in God's country Australia and having owned and still own several guitars (7) I thought it about time I built one. I have built lots of jigs big and small and am about 75% finished a beast called the Schnake and when I get it finished and work out how to add photos etc on here I will post some pix if it doesn't end up as firewood.

Regards DC

[smithgran]

Hello I am new to guitar builiding. I like to make a neck using this neck jig but I have a few questions.
1)How do you know what level to set the router bit.
2)If you want to make a different shape neck. You do this by changing the puck. What size should the new shape puck be.
3)I see that the neck is in a slot does it move up and down as it pass the router bit.

[Canadianbreed]

Welcome to this wonderful forum.
You will find everything you need for building.

As to your questions

#1 I set the bit so the it takes about a quarter inch off the corner of the neck and raise it as I go.
#2 For a diff. shape you change out the puck. Depending on the thickness at the 1st and 12th fret you would adjust the size accordingly.
#3 The slot is there so that as the rotation takes place the puck can ride up and down as the shape dictates.

I do plan to do up new pucks based on warmoths neck profiles.

Hope this helps.

Bill

[paulskirocks]

Bill, thanks so much for sharing this. I just downloaded your pdf files and will be making one of these. I have a particular neck I want to copy, and will use this. I'm sure there is some formula or method in autocad to transfer the profiles of the neck out to the pucks at the end of the jig, but I don't know that part! However, I know how I will handle that with my hillbilly engineering... This site is my favorite.

[jkmcd3]

Hey everybody, this is my first post, I have been reading all of the overwhelming info on this site, and it is amazing. I am tackling my first tele build right now. I plan on starting a post that will track my progress! I do have a few questions about the neck jig:

1.) Are you guys using this jig with a spindle sander or a router table?? The only video that I have ever seen, provided by Bill, who originally posted the plans for this, it shows a spindle sander? I am curious as to what you guys are using. If anyone has detailed video or photos of this jig in action, that would be awesome!
2.) Are the pucks interchangeable of of the center piece, or if you want to build different pucks, do you have to build multiple supports that the neck actually bolts too?

Hope these are not too confusing. Thanks for any advice!!

John

[paulskirocks]

Originally Posted by jkmcd3

Hey everybody, this is my first post, I have been reading all of the overwhelming info on this site, and it is amazing. I am tackling my first tele build right now. I plan on starting a post that will track my progress! I do have a few questions about the neck jig:

1.) Are you guys using this jig with a spindle sander or a router table?? The only video that I have ever seen, provided by Bill, who originally posted the plans for this, it shows a spindle sander? I am curious as to what you guys are using. If anyone has detailed video or photos of this jig in action, that would be awesome!
2.) Are the pucks interchangeable of of the center piece, or if you want to build different pucks, do you have to build multiple supports that the neck actually bolts too?

Hope these are not too confusing. Thanks for any advice!!

John

1. Router

2. Yes, No...

I am going to build one of these this week, myself... It's my understanding that the pucks are interchangeable...

[Mojotron]

Originally Posted by paulskirocks

...

I am going to build one of these this week, myself... It's my understanding that the pucks are interchangeable...

It depends on how you build the jig, but I used some dowels and steel bar to make pins so that I can pull the pucks off really easy to make them interchangeable. I just hold them to the base by making the holes in the pucks really tight so that they stay on and stay tight.

[Canadianbreed]

Okay, here is the low-down on the pucks, for doing a different neck profile the pucks are the only thing that you will need to change out.

I made the pucks based on Ed Hawley's neck drawing so the thinkness will be as that neck dictates at he 1st and 12th fret.

What you are doing is basically slicing at the 1st and 12th fret and offsetting it outside the slice by 1", this gets the neck away from the router table enough to rotate it over the bit.

Hope this helps, I will be doing a couple necks this week and plan to video the processes. So stay tuned.

Bill

[jkmcd3]

Thanks for the feedback, I have more question. Was this jig, or pucks included in the drawing, designed for a one piece neck. I am planning on building a neck with the truss channel under the fingerboard? Do I just need to resize the pucks, or raise the router to "trim some of the fat" that I would not need for this design.

Again, Thanks for the help!

John

[Mojotron]

Originally Posted by jkmcd3

Thanks for the feedback, I have more question. Was this jig, or pucks included in the drawing, designed for a one piece neck. I am planning on building a neck with the truss channel under the fingerboard? Do I just need to resize the pucks, or raise the router to "trim some of the fat" that I would not need for this design.

Again, Thanks for the help!

John

I think you will always want to move the bit slowly up to 7/8" on successive passes. So, all of the changes to the shaping needs to be done by the changes to the pucks.

In Bill's original drawings the pucks are included, as well a a separate PDF just for the pucks.

This is a jig that you will want to study for yourself, understand how to adjust things to get the result you want and then play with those on a few test necks.

[Canadianbreed]

HI guys,

Just thought I would post a link to my neck jig on youtube I uploaded last night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fv-mLftEiRM

Enjoy

Bill

[oigun]

Great Bill I shaped my necks by hand but you really got me thinking....
Thanks!

[Canadianbreed]

For those of you who may have missed my other neck tutorial thread,

Okay here are the 2 links, I went over the allowable time so ZI needed to split the vids into 2.

Part A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbVDL3WAaWQ

Part B:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf2kqHkKxEU

Bill

[J Syrja]

Great vids Bill. Thanks for making those. At first the jug didn't make munch sence but seeing it in action really makes it clear. I'll probably making one to yse for my $210 challenge build.

I do have one question, I might have missed it if some one else brought it up earlier in the thread. Have you tried using this jig to radius the fret board? It looks like if pucks where made with the appropreate radii one could use this jig to also radius the fret board. Having a separate 'sled' and additional pucks would allow for an easy and quick switch out to go from back contour to fret board radius with out the need of an additional jig. 1 jig for two jobs seems like a pretty good deal to me. Using separate Radii on the pucks will still give you a compound radius to the board if desired, or two of the same radii will give a straight board of a singlular radii.