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

[Jack Wells]

When you get to the end of your router travel, do you leave the slight angle that you get from the 90 degrees off the curve,

Yep that's what I did. I suppose you could square up the end with a drill press but I really don't see much benefit.

All you need to be concerned about is getting the walnut skunk strip snug at the headstock end of the channel. The other end will be in the neck pocket. Many of Fender necks I've seen have a gap in the channel at the heel end.

Thanks for the compliments guys. I hope to finish this up soon but my chosen career path is interferring at this time.

[Canadianbreed]

Thanks Jack,

I will be building my curved jig tomorrow night.
I have 2 necks in waiting, I just need to pick up a 1/4" bit.

Bill

[uberaxe]

Hi Jack, new to these forums. Just wanted to know what those lever-type clamps were that you were using to hold down the neck while you drilled out the keyhole for the trussrod at the headstock? Looked like you have built a permanent jig for that.

Thanks
Darren

[Jack Wells]

Those clamps are called 'quick release toggle clamps'. The should be available from most woodworking stores. I got mine from Woodworkers Supply.

Quick Release Toggle Clamps @ Woodworkers Supply

The neck drilling jig is not my idea. I saw something similar in Make Your Own Electric Guitar by Melvyn Hiscock.

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[Canadianbreed]

Hey welcome Uberaxe.
You'll find this an exciting and informative forum.

Bill

[Canadianbreed]

Jack,

Do you have closeup shots of your truss rod hole jigs?
(see my poplar build post)

Bill

Originally Posted by jwells393

Next I thin down the headstock. I want the final thickness to be a little less than 0.6 in. so I cut it a little thicker.



I use the Wagner Safety Planner mounted in the drill press to get the final thickness.



I've built a jig patterned after the one in the Hiscock book for drilling the acces hole to the truss rod channel. Here are a couple of pictures of it.



The long 3/8 bit goes through a guide block made of hard maple and drilled at a 3 degree angle per the Strat book. Depth of 3/8 hole is 1.2 in. beyond the nut line.

[Canadianbreed]

Jack,

How did you fix the holes that were slightly offcentre?

Here a picture showing the holes I drilled from the headstock into the truss rod channel. The top one is a 1/4 in hole drilled using a guide block in the jig. The second one was done more or less free hand. Both are a little off to the treble side. Looks fixable to me.

http://www.tdpri.com/forum/telecaste...tml#post865250

My headstock hole is dead on but my heel is slightly off. I drilled using a 3/16" bit, so maybe going to a 1/4" bit will solve the issue if there really is one.

Bill

[Canadianbreed]

Some silly investigating.
The strat neck drawing calls up a .203 hole through.
3/16 is 0.1875
1/4 is 0.25
13/64 is 0.203125

Don't know of a long drill bit with this dia. so it will need to be a 1/4 for ease of installation.

Bill

[Ragtime Dan]

This thread inspired me to join Telecaster Guitar Forum.
I have been contemplating the one piece neck build. These posts are exactly what I needed to gain the confidence to get started.
Thanks for all your hard work Jack!

[Robert112157]

MAKE ME ONE PLEASE!,,,,,, that is great stuff...........

[Vizcaster]

Fantastic thread, Jack. Because of you're praise of the Ridgid oscillating edge-belt, SWMBO got me one for Christmas. I noticed from a video tour of the Gibson custom shop that they have a similar ege belt sander with a belt long enough to roll the entire neck at once.

The 4x24 belt is not quite as long as the neck profile, so how did you do it? - did you slide the neck back and forth sideways as you rolled it (two motions at once), or did you roll one area and then move the whole thing along and roll again?

By the way, the specs aren't available online or in the manual, but the sanding sleeves are 4-1/2" long which is a standard size in the Klingspoor sandpaper catalog, in case you don't want to buy the full assortment sets from the Depot.

[Canadianbreed]

JWells,

I have a small question regarding your Ridgid sander.
What is the distance from table top to spindles height at its lowest travel?

Bill

[Jack Wells]

These measurement are approximate.

With a 2 in. drum the top of the sandpaper sleeve moved between 3 in. and 3 3/4 in. from the table top.

With the belt sander attachment tracking true the top of the sanding belt varied from 3 1/2 to 4 1/4 in. above the table top.

[JohnPurdy]

jwells, Are you still liking that spindle sander? I thought I might pick one up.

John

[Jack Wells]

The Ridgid Oscillating Spindle/Belt Sander is on of my favorite woodworking tools. It's great if you use the sand and try method of fitting parts together.

[scubadoo]

Hi Jack,

Any more progress on these necks? I've really enjoyed the thread so far.

I'm just about to have a go at a tele neck and was wondering if you could answer a couple of questions for me.

This may be a stupid question, but what do you use as a guide when you route for the truss rod channel, are you using some kind of bushing on the router base that lines up against your jig?

The truss rod i have is one that fits in a U-shaped aluminium housing so would i need to route a flat channel rather than a curved one?

How does the Stewmac fret mitre box take account of the fact that the neck does not have parallel sides. Do you have to line it up and clamp it, how do you make sure the fret slots are all parallel?

Sorry for all the questions

Best wishes
Dave

[Canadianbreed]

You could check out my neck build thread under new member poplar tele build,
if you haven't already.

Bill

[Jack Wells]

Double post ............. again !!

[Jack Wells]

No progress Dave. I do need to get back to neck building because I've built several bodies that need necks.

You should definitely check out Bill's thread. Very interesting neck shaping jig he's developing.

I think the StewMac fret slotting miter box is actually intended to cut slots in fingerboards before they are glued to the neck. If you want to use it on a one piece Telecaster neck you need to get a long strip of 1/4 in. MDF that will fit inside the miter box. Draw a centerline down the length of the MDF. Align you neck centerline to this centerline and stick your neck to this with double sided tape. This is what you would do if you were not using the Fret Scale Template.

If you're using the Fret Scale Template with the miter box, You would align your neck centerline with a line on the template parallel to the edge of the template. The following post shows how I mounted the miter box to make a jig and shows the neck stuck to the Fret Scale Template. It also show that a Telecaster neck will fit into the miter box to saw the lower frets slots and nut slot but a Strat neck wouldn't allow that. Someone in the forum cut away the back side of their miter box to allow for a Strat headstock.

StewMac Miter Box and Fret Scale Template

what do you use as a guide when you route for the truss rod channel,

It didn't actually show up clearly in the pictures but I used a router edge guide that runs along the back side of the curved channel jig. I don't necessarily think that's the best way to do it. However at the time, it gave me an excuse to buy the Porter Cable micro-adjustable edge guide. Here's a better picture.

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[krauser2]

you guys are super talented

Everytime I get on here someone is doing some really cool things.

one day I really want to make my own guitar.