Official Luthiers Forum!

Hey everyone,

I am working on my 1st neck, and I am just amazed at how long it is taking me.

My question, how do you all develop uniformity in your neck shaping? Is each neck just an individual project, so there is variance from one to the next. Or, do you have some method to make them uniform?

I am enjoying the process, but can't figure out how to develop a "system".

Thank you for the help!

jeff

Jeff...

A couple of tricks I learned, go and buy a molding gauge, it's a little bar with a bunch of small rods in it, you push it on the molding and it copy's the shape.
They work great for neck shaping, you can see by eye how uniform your neck is, another great trick is once you get a neck your happy with make some molds of it, Mark Blanchard documents how to do that on his site.

I don't get overly concerned with symetry, I'm more concerned with feel, I get the neck close using micro-planes of various shapes, a draw knife and a couple of spokeshaves, once I get close I pull out 80 grit paper and work my way to 220 refining the shape and feel the whole time. I can do one in an afternoon if I'm not interupted.

Good Luck...

-Paul-

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-Paul-

Patriot Guitars

Hi Jeff,
I just carved my 2nd neck yesterday. It really helps to draw lines for all of the facets of the neck - like in the Cumpiano book (also see Pete Licis' approach in the Jigs section here). Of course it's easy to obliterate the lines & get lost! It helps to have pictures of necks taken at various angles in front of you as you shape it.

Given a blank roughed in on a band saw, I use a combination of 3/4" chisel (basic heel shapes), tabletop belt sander (for most of the heel shaping), flat spokeshave (cheap green Kunz - it's great) for shaping the long part, and a really cool flexible micro-rasp (Lee Valley)for further shaping the long part.

I just hack away at the thing moving from part to part as it takes shape, refining all the time. Takes about two hours, I guess.

I'm sure others have refined their techniques much further but that's how another newbie has done it.

Skip

The neck is the part I enjoy the most. It takes more time the closer you get to the finished product. At first you are hogging the material off then shaping then refining until it looks and feels right. I don't use any contour guides for mine, just the rough pattern and then I have some jigs as I'm sure most do for shaping the headstock and making the heel & tenon. I have a taper jig for setting the height of the neck shaft back. I'll try to post some pics of my methods next time I make one.

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

For the heel, I use the Cumpiano method. There are probably faster ways but this method is methodical. (Wow, a methodical method.) For the shank of the neck, I use the blanchard guages. ( http://www.13thfret.com/articles/blanchard/blanchard1.html ) Prior to shaping, I draw the profile at the 1st fret and the 9th fret on a sheet of paper. I then draw the profile of the unshaped blank over the curved profile. I take a ruler and draw a line from the bottom of the blank to the side that just misses the curve of the neck profile. I measure where this line intersects the side and back of the blank. I transfer this measurement to the blank and draw a line on the side of the blank from the 1st fret mark to the 9th fret mark. I do the same thing on the back. This is my primary facet. I cut the neck with a microplane or spoke shave and make a flat facet all along the neck. Once I get this facet, I shape the rest by eye and feel.
I think I need to draw up some pictures. I'll post them when I do.
Mike Mahar38369.3972222222

Jeff, Neck shaping to me is more fun than most everything except maybe bending sides. I like that too.

These are all good suggestions, and I'd like to add one too, that helped quickly get me where I wanted to be.

If you can shape the fretboard and attach it to the neck blank then you have a perfect pattern to follow with a router cutter. I glue on my fretboard then use a pattern following router bit on my router table. Carefully feed the blank in until you reach the fingerboard, then slide all the way down the side.

What that gives is a perfectly trimmed neck blank to the fingerboard. I pin the neck in place too using 1/16th inch aluminum pins through the fret slots. This is to keep the fretboard from slipping out of position during glueup.

Good luck, figure out what works, and this will be a satisfying experience in guitarmaking. One of my favorite tools besides rasps and microplanes, also a rasp, very sharp, is my four inch drawknife. This dual handled drawknife belonged to my Grandfather a carpenter in Los Angeles from 1930 to 1060. It is so handy to quickly remove excess wood from the shaft of the neck.

Thanks everyone for the help! Great ideas. The neck is coming along slowly but surely. I am at final sanding and carving the transition from the neck to headstock.

Jeff