Neck shaping jig complete.

[highwaycat]

I put together a neck shaping jig.
I modified these desk swivel feet to be loose and glued some leather to a few spots.
Next is the strap and clamping but most of the work is done.
I’ve always wanted a jig for putting an electric face down. I remove two knobs and the switch. I spent a while sanding and scraping the parts so it’s a rock solid jig.

 

[eallen]

I'm not sure I am following the intended use of the jig? To hold a neck while carving it?

 

[highwaycat]

Yes I’ve seen many people just let the neck hang off the bench but it moves too much.
I bolted it underneath and clamped it. There’s no movement or neck flexing.
For me this will make things easier. It’s the right height too.
Besides working on the neck pocket I do everything with the neck attached to the body and the setup roughed in.

 

[Freeman Keller]

I built an entirely different jig a long time ago and it was one of the best things I ever did.

First, I build mostly angled headstock necks and this was designed for them. The head part could easily be redesigned for flat heads like fenders. Second, I adopted 16 degree head angle long ago, if I was going to do this again I would make the head piece adjustable for angle. That could actually make it valuable for gluing scarf joints and for doing heads stock repairs (I've built a different jig for this). I can do different angles for the head with shims but 16 degrees seems to be a good angle. You could easily make the head support piece go down to zero degrees which would allow you to do fender necks on the same gizmo.

I do most of the carving the the fretboard off the neck but this could be modified to support the f/b. The jig can be moved around my work bench, that lets me work from the sides or ends or tip the neck on its side. It has little feet that can be clamped to the bench as needed. Very simple design built out of a few scraps of plywood

I normally clamp at the head and the heel, the angled head piece is padded with cork

The bound fretboard has been glue on and I'm shaping to two templates

Here it is tipped on the side while I scrape the neck to fit the binding

It would be easy to improve on the design but this has made a couple dozen necks so I probably won't change anything