About to rout neck pocket for set neck!! Have a question

[Atlantamm]

I am about to rout the neck pocket for my set neck and have a couple of question before I do. First, the guitar will be a Tunomatic bridge so i know there will need to be some neck angle added to the neck or neck pocket. The top of the guitar angles down towards the neck pocket so when I rout the neck pocket, there will already be a angle in the pocket, but I know I will need to rout the neck with additional angle to it to get it flat across the tunomatic. I have heard that the degree of neck angle should be around 3-4 degrees. Is it true that if correctly routed, the straight edge should lay flat across the neck and rest right on the saddles of the bridge with it screwed all the way down? Any tips are appreciated before I take this big step.

Thanks

[RodeoTex]

That is just about the most frustrating thing about building a Gibson type guitar. On flat tops I put in a 2-3 degree slant in the neck pocket. For carved tops I find it best to measure everything very carefully then do a full scale drawing to find that angle.
Search for member Preeb here and have a gander at his 59 Les Paul Build thread. Lots of good stuff there.

[otterhound]

Call me silly , but I would cut the foot of the tenon at the proper angle and make everything else square .

[piece of ash]

Actually, you need to have your bridge set somewhat higher to provide "action" height for your strings.

The gap between the strings and frets at the 17th fret should be around 1/16 to 2/16" (low to high for most people). Under string tension, you'll get about 1/64" over the 17th fret for free... this is because the strings bend the neck forward.

So... to get things in the ball park. Place a 1/16" shim on 17th fret and set your ruler across the 1rst and 17th. That should be fairly close... but you still be able to adjust the bridge up and down, at least 1/8" up or down, from that point

[Luthier Atlanta]

Logging in

[Picton]

Originally Posted by RodeoTex

For carved tops I find it best to measure everything very carefully then do a full scale drawing to find that angle.

I've done precisely one archtop guitar, and I did A LOT of full-scale drawing and erasing to figure out the angles. I think my neck angle came to somewhere like 4.5 degrees; slightly more than four, anyway. Works fine. Yours will depend, in part, on the "rise" from the low part to the high part of the top.

[davmac]

I wrote up my notes from when I worked this out for my Les Paul build.

http://damacleod.wordpress.com/2011/...rs-neck-angle/

Hope this helps.

[guitarbuilder]

4 degrees is generally the measurement thereabouts for a gibson bridge on a carved top like a standard. A flat top body like a LP junior is more like 2 degrees. Get a piece of paper and draw a side view and draw in all the variables like bridge height, fret height, and gap from the bottom of the strings to the frets. You can find trig calculators on line if you don't know how to do it manually or have a calculator.

[Nick JD]

Depends on how high you set it. If you set it high, you need much less angle that if it's set low.

What kind of pickups are going in there (ring height etc).

And most of all, what kind of guitar is it? Sounds like a LP if you have an angle on the body already. Do you want the fretboard flush on this?