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Hi Folks!

I am trying to glue neck block on the body and have couple questions.
btw, it's bolt on neck.

My neck block is square and my upper bout is not. So I'm trying to sand the block to fit tight on the upper bout and realized that eye balling how much to sand on each side of this neck block might not be such a good idea.

So Here I have couple questions.

-If I guess how much to sand on each side by dry fitting and checking with my eyes to see the difference, wouldn't this be very inaccurate way of doing what I"m trying to achieve? What if I glue on the neck block with one side sanded more than other, wouldn't my neck be not centered once attached?

-Is the angle on the neck block on bolt on neck not that important in terms of how it fits on upper bout?

Thanks, David

David, if you have an outside mold for the body, here's what I do. Put a piece of self stick sandpaper on the inside of the mold where the neck block fits, then just sand the block in place. It will be a perfect fit. Same for the tail block.

Ron

_________________
OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

THanks for that tip.

However I'm curious to know if 1mm in angle difference at the neck block will mean 1 inch or more at the headstock...or is there a way to adjust the angle of the neck and how it attchaed to the block???

THanks, David

What Ron said.

I do it a bit differently and I use the maple Stew-Mac wooden sanding cauls with self-stick sand paper on them.

I think that guitars look a bit nicer without a square neck block so I have slightly modified all of my molds to match a 16" radius for the neck block. This is a off-the-shelf sanding block from Stew-mac and matches perfectly. You can also use the sanding block to make a positive radius, 16" or what every you wish to use, and using the radiused block to glue and clamp the rim to the blocks, neck and tail block, outside the mold. It also helps to not pre-radius the top edge of the sides so the glue-up can be done upside down on a flat bench.

Making a clamping caul for the tail block is easy too with a flat block with Bondo smeared on it and waxed paper and clamped to the radiused tail block. When dry you have a perfect match.

Sorry David I did not see your last question.

What I do is center the block under the mold and trace the mold curve on the block. I check my distances on both sides and when it looks centered I sand the block in the cauls mentioned above until I have sanded it equally on both sides and the top and bottom edges. If it is not exactly centered, and they rarely are, they are close and this is one of the things that flossing the neck joint will correct by flossing more on one side, or, of course, less on the other side.

I applaud you for wanting to get it right the first time. Rick Turner has commented here that he believes that it is important for builders to try very hard to get it right initially and not spend our time fixing mistakes. I completely agree and often remember Rick's comments when I am building and thinking that something is good enough - when it is not.....

I didn't make a caul on mine, I just glue it inside the mold, using the mold as the caul. David, here is a link to a build journal for a guitar I made for a pickin' friend. May be something there that will help you.

http://home.earthlink.net/~wisdomr/id1.html

Ron

_________________
OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

Thanks guys!
I have better clue as to how I"m going to be sanding my block tomorrow.
However I'm still very curious to level of accurace needed for attaching neck block. Again, wouldn't center of block being off...say 1mm reference to centerline of the body make a bigger difference as you move up the neck and to headstock?

Hesh,
Thank you for the encouraging comment.
You mentioned flossing, is this something that most lutheirs use when attaching bolt on necks?

David

David, the mortise in the neck block needs to be as dead center of the guitar as possible, just for the reasons you mentioned. Everything you do needs to be done as accurately as you are capable of doing it. Whatever method you use, the center line of the neck needs to be very well centered to the neck block. Also, I believe there is a photo of flossing in the link I gave above.

Ron

_________________
OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

David my friend yes flossing the neck cheeks is something that you do on a bolt-on neck too.

Here is a toot that some jerk put together a while back. Pay particular attention to Colin's idea of backing the sand paper strips with tape - that idea really helped me get way more time out of the sand paper.

http://luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10102&t=15022&p=213916&hilit=flossing+the+neck+tutorial#p213916

Like my buddy Rod said we always build as accurately as we can but fine tuning, like flossing the cheeks, is just part of guitar building.