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I know nothing about guitar necks. I'm shaping mine now. I have the head on, the dovetail, no fb extension yet; I'll do that after I glue the neck on. Yes, I sometimes don't follow directions; but I like to have them, like ideas or options!

For the neck I found '59 Les Paul templates for the 1st and 11th fret. It seems like a beefy enough profile. The guitar is for me. I haven't played in years, but was going through lessons in a book on Spanish guitar. It did fingerpicking, chords, arpeggios, all kinds of stuff. It was fun. I'm retiring the end of June and will have time now to learn. The neck/fingerboard on the Classical I have is pretty big, but so is the gap under the saddle! It feels fine to me size wise. It is large when I compare numbers to other things. What do smaller profiles have going for them? My hands and fingers aren't that big, but getting them out of the way of open strings was a problem.

I found that a Ball canning rim might work for the heel end. Is that a big enough radius?

I never liked the flat fingerboard top. Barr chords are impossible. I planned on a 12 inch radius because that's what the Archtop I'm loosely copying has. Now I see that they run all over the map. 12" is on the flat side. What makes makers decide what kind of radius to use?

I'll probably stick to the 12" for this one, but there will be more in the future. It is fun, I have time, and I have some wood. A classical, a baroque, a semi hollow Les Paul? I have plans too.

Hah, I have to go to work. Put 3 photos in, and they came out to be the same one.
OOPS

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Why be normal?

FB radius is a bit of a player preference sometimes.... On all my current builds (unless specified as different by the client) I use a compound radius. This is a conical profile that gets flatter towards the bridge. I typically do 12" at the nut, 16" at the 12th which yields 20" for saddle radius. This has some mathematical advantages during set up and improves string action when big bends are wanted.

Typical FB radius used vary from 7.5"-20" so 12 is about the middle of the road. IME arthritic and smaller hands tend to favor tighter radius. This is of course as applied to steel string guitars. Nylon strings are a different animal and need higher action to accommodate larger string vibrational envelopes. And since barre chords are rarely used in the style of music mostly played on them a wider flatter board is preferred.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

Thanks Brian, That conical idea seems worth trying. The board is flatter where the string spacing widens. Does that make it 'feel' the same up and down? I still may put light steel string on it. I don't have the belly thinned down yet to see how it feels.

I'm used to using a 42 mm radius gauge on violin fingerboards, and they are twice as wide at the end as at the nut. Then they have .5 to 1 mm gradual relief in them too; maybe 3/4's down. Do guitar makers do that?

I read that someone sets it dead flat, and then dials in a relief curve using the truss rod. Seems odd to want to bend the neck up. I could maybe see, turning it so it JUST has tension OPPOSING the pull of the strings.

For the heel, I use my thumb as a guide for violins. It would look REALLY small on a guitar neck. A regular size canning jar rim seems about right for a guide. Let's see if I can get the picture right. I was excited to find that the camera on the phone had a 4X zoom. Now if I can figure out how I got it to work, that would be something to really be excited about.



Now an arch top is a different animal from other guitars because of the elevated neck. It seems like it would have more stress on that area because the top of the neck is above the block. But then again, the smaller string angle reduces the tension directly pulling on the neck. Does that size radius seem fine?

One thing I found that is really nice about a 3 piece neck is that you can get a really good idea of how your radius is going down the entire length on both sides; at least in the middle half; by viewing it sideways, and seeing how much of the center section you see. It's pretty easy to see. I still use my wide plane blade as a scraper in every direction to keep it even.



It works better when you aren't in a hurry. Where did I just read that?

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Why be normal?

Assuming they were talking about a traditional single-acting truss rod, the neck is hopefully made so that when strung up if the truss rod is completely relaxed there will be a little bit too much relief. The truss rod allows you to set the exact amount of relief. I tend to agree with Dan Erlewine's approach that he does the best set up he can with no relief, then only loosens the rod and adds a bit of relief if it improves the tone and dynamic range of the guitar.

The amount of material removed to turn a cylindrical fingerboard into a compound-radius is very small. You can't fell that difference as you are fretting. The difference you can feel is that you can bend notes with a more consistent tone and avoid having the bent note get choked out completely if the action is very low. It is best to build the compound radius into the board before fretting, although the amount of difference can actually be filed into the frets on a cylindrical board simply by being perfectionist about only filing (sanding) the frets in straight lines following the paths of the strings (fanning out from the nut up to the highest fret).

I learned to play on classic guitars and I like an electric with a wider string spacing. It is easier for me to do finger picking if the strings aren't so close to each other.
That heel looks totally normal. It is really just a matter of how you use your hand when playing the highest notes. Different makers have different styles there, but your shape is one of the most popular.

I just shape a straight radius into my boards. 16" for a flat top and 12" for most archtops. Like the previous poster, when leveling the fretboard after it is on the guitar I sand with the Stewmac bar in line with the string runs and do the same when leveling frets. I think I get enough compounding with that technique to be beneficial.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

It is a double acting. I don't know anything about truss rods, and it seemed like it was liked and popular on Stew Mac!

I did some math earlier today, and it is only .01" or so. It seems like there HAS to be some recurve put in it, or it would buzz. But it seems they are flat?

I don't know anything about frets either. I put a dozen on the only guitar I made, a half scale shaped like a baroque Stradivarius for the grandsons. It wasn't too hard. I bought a pull stroke fret saw that worked good. I have no idea what size I put on, I know there are all different kinds of them, but I don't need to pick yet. Soon. I want to order them when I order tuners. Another thing I know nothing about,

I thought about Grover Uke tuners because they are lighter. I can't imagine they wouldn't work on a guitar. Will they?

It has a cutaway too, so high notes shouldn't be a problem.

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Why be normal?

Not that it has anything to do with radius of a fret board... but more on the truss rod question. Fretted instruments and how they set up are quite different from violins or cellos. Relief is not near as critical on a violin as there is a wide range of acceptability there and as tensions are lower action is not as critical either.

Frets add a new twist to the equation as well by locking in temperment which is affected by action height which can be affected by fret board relief..... follow me so far? So in and ideal world we would have a perfectly flat fret surface with strings running perfectly parallel with just enough room to clear the typical vibrational envelope of the string in question. But since we play against one end of the scale and not the other the nut becomes an issue. If the strings are not right at the plane of the frets here any note played on the first 4 or so frets will pull extremely sharp. So to get room for vibrational envelope down the board we must raise the other end of the strings at the bridge making the action get taller as we get farther down the FB. So by adding a small amount of relief we can keep string action as best as it can be over the entire board.

Two way rods are nice because they allow very accurate relief adjustments. Sometimes with a single action rod and light strings the neck doesn't actually get any relief because of low tension.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/