Which Essential tools for neck shaping?

[Flynman]

I am building my first Tele neck out of birdseye maple. I cut the shape and routed for the truss rod and drilled tuner holes already. Everything came out really well. Now for the neck contour. What essential tools do most of you use? ie: types of raspes, sanders any particular brands or type of cutting teeth (rough, smooth). I have a tele neck from Warmoth that I can take thickness and width messurements from so I figure that can be a good guide. Just not sure of best method to use to shape it.


thanks
keith

[68thinline]

Look around the site. There's many ways to do it.

I like a spokeshave for rapid wood removal and an orbital sander for shaping the transitions. If I had a good rasp I'd use that too for shaping the transition at the head.

Finally, I think calipers are easily worth the money.

[Mike Simpson]

A belt sander...

[joe desperado]

Be carefull with any cutting style tool for shaping Birdseye. Spokeshave will tear out the eyes and leave holes. Use Bill's router jig or rasp/sander. Planes and the like will destroy the figure.

On most other woods a spokeshave will work as an option.

[jkingma]

I do 90% of my neck shaping with a good rasp. The other 10% is done with my bandsaw, spindle sander, scrapers and sandpaper.

[FSJazzGuy]

Thanks for posting those pics jkingma.

I'm at the point in my first neck build where I'll be radiusing the fretboard and shaping the back in the next few days. Installing the truss rod was an ordeal, but it's behind me now.

I've seen D, C, V, soft V, U and maybe a couple more profiles listed. Are there cross sections of these profiles posted anywhere, or is it purely more of a artsy-fartsy, that feels about right sort of thing??

Be nice to be able to be able to cut a profile template, otherwise, I fear I'll be so afraid of taking off too much, that I will end up with the Lousville Slugger profile.

How do you guys do it??

Tks.

[pavel]

Originally Posted by FSJazzGuy

I've seen D, C, V, soft V, U and maybe a couple more profiles listed. Are there cross sections of these profiles posted anywhere, or is it purely more of a artsy-fartsy, that feels about right sort of thing??

Bunch of places, including Warmoth and USACG.

A number of books have these too, the Erlewine book, I think Nacho's book too.

Your best bet is copying the profile you like from an actual neck, if you have access to it.

Originally Posted by FSJazzGuy

How do you guys do it??
Tks.

As many others here, I use Bill's jig, highly recommended. Before I had it, I cut a set of profile gauges to use during the shaping.

[jkingma]

Originally Posted by pavel

As many others here, I use Bill's jig, highly recommended. Before I had it, I cut a set of profile gauges to use during the shaping.

Don' get me wrong... Bill's jig is great. But in all honesty I can get the back rough shaped by hand with a rasp quicker than I think I could get the neck blank secured in the jig and all set up. I could probably rought out 3 or 4 complete necks faster than I could build the jig.

Getting the end bits shaped first takes about 5 or 6 minutes.


The rest in between, perhaps another 15 or 20 minutes.

[Nick JD]

I use a grinder with an 80 grit disk and then some sandpaper. Cuts like butter! Takes about fifteen minutes to rough out and rough sand. Very simple.





It's easy to get a few lengths of pine and make a few necks. Everyone trys it first on expensive maple and I think their nerves are the primary cause of any problem, not their skill.

[Flynman]

Ok..great info... I have a spindle sander attachment on my drill press...Of course this might give me a reason (as if I needed one) to by a spindle sander. I have a shinto saw rasp but that's probably a little too agressive. I will pick up a course and a fine cut rasp. Anyone find 1 of those black & decker detail sanders helpful?