Building A One Piece Neck.........

[Scott V]

Very impressive indeed, thanks for sharing this project.

[Captain HiTop]

Upside : Amazing threads like this have me stopping by TDPRI on a daily basis.
Downside : Your disclaimer is no longer valid Jack.

Great work , love it

Cheers,

ch

[Jack Wells]

Thanks guys.

Could you give some ideas of the rest of the materials you used for the truss rod?

Well, as I showed above, the anchor was made from 1/2 in. steel rod threaded with a 10-32 tap. The rod itself is 3/16 in. steel rod threaded with a 10-32 die. These rods are available from Lowes, Home Depot and many neighborhood hardware stores. The truss rod nut is this one from StewMac.

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Truss_ro...s_Rod_Nut.html

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Almost forgot about this. This is a great tool for neck shaping ........ part of a set I bought from Grizzly. It's good to get the burnishing tool from StewMac so you can keep a good edge on it.

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[japasul]

GREAT STUFF!!!

i was just about to take some pics of my own neck making.... Anyways, i just bought a router this week, so im not used to using it yet....

Either way, ill make a go-along pic-torial as i go...

thanks for sharing!

[Jack Wells]

I mentioned earlier in this thread that I was also building a vintage style neck (truss rod adjustment at the heel). That one has been on a back burner since I was unable to find a suitable anchor for the truss rod. The anchor mounted on the truss rod has to fit through the 3/8 in. hole in the headstock and lock into the wood somehow.

I was unsuccessful after contacting StewMac Customer Service. I was basicly told "Don't have them. Don't know where to get them". Warmoth sells a vintage truss rod but not just the anchor. I went so far as to contact Melvyn Hiscock inquiring about the one pictured in his book. He wasn't able to help much. Said "they" had had several made up special several years ago.

Yesterday as I was browsing around the special parts drawers at my local Lowes, I may have found my anchor. It's a 6-32 knurled nut. I bought a package of two ($1.05). When I got back to Jack Ranch I drilled and tapped it 10-32. The knurled part does fit through the 3/8 in. hole.

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I decided to do a little test with a small block of hard maple. Here I've drilled a 11/32 in. hole followed by a smaller 1/4 in. hole into the end grain.

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A few taps with a dowel and a hammer and the knurled part is driven into the maple.

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Here's the block after removing the rod. Looks like it just might work.

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[Superc_1]

First off great thread and I wish I had see this before yesturday, but thats usually the story of my life. My question is what radius did you use when cutting the neck jig for the router to run along? I've read the whole thread but did not see that radius mentioned. I tried using one of them plastic bushings on my router like telex showed but it melted at the end so its back to the drawing board. I did get a lot of practice in, but I will not be able to use the neck. Thanks in advance.

[Jack Wells]

I discussed in the first post that I used the Stratocaster neck blueprint found in the Duchossoir Strat book. I didn't go into specifics because it's a little more complicated than a single radius. Probably best understood if you take a look at the following:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...kBlueprint.jpg

If you build a jig like I show in the first post it would be a good idea to practice on 2x4s and take measurements of the channel depth at the ends and at the high point before starting on a neck blank. Actually making a neck out of a 2x4 would be good to work out the various steps.

I hope to get back to finishing these necks and this thread in a couple of weeks. Hopefully I can show something not seen in recent neck building threads.

[milkshape]

Hey Jack,
Kinda off topic for this thread but you mentioned you were making a mini neck for a mini tele, I am in the midst of the same. Was wondering how you went about your mini tele body templates?
Would love to see the mini neck build.

Thanks for showing an alternate neck method.

[Jack Wells]

Mini-Tele Body Template:
Let's see if I can explain this. I took a Jpeg scan of the Telecaster blueprint found in the Duchossior book. This was before the Terry Downs drawing. I cropped the picture so the cropped image outlined the body. The picture was then resized so the length is 14 1/2 in. I printed this image actual size in two pieces since I can only print 8 1/2 x 11. I taped the two pieces together and glued them to 1/4 in. MDF then cut and sanded to the line................ the neck pocket area was modified to allow for a standard sized neck pocket.

This body will be used with a 22 3/4 scale neck as found on the Squier Mini-Stats. Location of pickup cavities and control plate cavity will be worked out with the neck in the pocket.

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[milkshape]

Thanks , I did about the same thing for the print to be placed on the template using the excellent tdowns pdf. Used the snapshot tool in acrobat to copy it to the clipboard and then import into paintbrush, played around with size until it was about the same size as the mini strat body I have. I also noticed that the lower bouts of the strat and tele are very close but the horn seems to be off quite a bit. I thought it was strange the mini necks heel was standard size. I have yet to add this to my drawing. Couple more questions:
Are you going to transfer the 1/4 to a 3/4 template when you cut the body?
I imagine the bridge will determine the location of the bridge pickup rout, but for the neck pickup are you just gonna
- wing it?
- use the dimension from the neck pickup on one of your mini strats?
- use a ratio based on the location and scale length of a full size tele?

would love to see pics of the mini neck.

thanks again for the detailed info.

[Jack Wells]

I've already cut my body. I used the template above to make a plexiglas template. I actually didn't do as I say. Somehow my template turned out to be 13 3/4 in. long. It's been a long time since I made it and I don't really remember the criteria I was using at the time. I've laid it out with a vintage style bridge and it looks like the bridge may be set back a bit toward the butt end. I measured a Mini-Strat and saw that the centerline length was 14 1/2 in.

I'll probably just use what looks right visually when determining location for the neck pickup. Since the Mini neck only has 20 frets, using a ratio based on a full sized Tele might place it too far from the neck to look right.

Here's my Mini-Tele neck alongside a Mini-Strat neck with reshaped headstock. I'll be using it for a mini-hybrid project. The maple board neck still needs frets, nut, final shaping and finish.

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Here's the body with the bridge plate in the required location. It doesn't look right to me so I may start over with a larger body. I'm thinking the size of this pine scrap may have determined the length I made it.

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[milkshape]

thanks again jack, neck looks fantastic, I think you're right the bridge does look a little far back. Maybe it's just the size of the bridge?

[boris bubbanov]

Wonderful thread, Jack. Thanks so much for your contribution.

I'm already devising a way to mount my portable 3" belt sander so I can imitate what you've done with that cool Ridgid tool, to put a little taper on the boatnecks I'll be getting from Warmoth. After a wee bit of work with the lil plane.

Yeah, the quarter sheet random motion sander is a real workhorse for me.

Love the way you just wade in there and get the job done. When ya got tools ya gotta use 'em.

Bubbanov

[tdowns]

Jack,
You are such a baddd dude!!!!

Thanks for sharing. With much respect....

TD

[Jack Wells]

Love the way you just wade in there and get the job done.

Well ................ I sure haven't been getting the job done recently. Looking at my posts, I see I haven't worked on these necks since July. Maybe in a couple of weeks I'll get started again.

[Goluphi]

Wow, nice work.

[BillyG]

MacGyver has got nothing on you. I'm very impressed.

[anyone]

Hey Jack,

Thanks for taking the time to put this up. Very educational and inspirational!
I've really enjoyed all your other build threads too.
Much appreciation, man!

Chris

[Rob DiStefano]

Jack, you da man! Makes me *THINK* about getting back to scratch building .... NOT!!!

[PeterUK]

I'm loving this post!

Peter