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I am about a year into building and have tooled up nicely.

I am confident in putting boxes together, bracing, making my own dishes, roughing out and shaping necks, fret boards, fretting, etc. etc.

The one thing I never thought about as being hard is killing me. And that is coming up with a good 5 degree neck joint. Fitting the neck to the body is just killing me. I have 2 bodies and 2 necks that would be a short time away from completion but this is killing me. I am hard headed though and will not stop til I get it right.

So I am looking at the neck tenon jig plans and was wondering how useful they were to others and how many of ya'll use something similar.

Is the jig pretty easy to make, b/c I am not real big into making jigs for days on end. I don't care if it is doe tail or mortise.

Thanks in advance

1.5 degree, yeah sorry.....

are you saying that you are using the woolson jig?

What Todd says...Woolson jig here...jig good!

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

Another approach is to take care of the angle using a jig for your belt sander on the raw neck blank, then just cut the M&T or dovetail indexing off the 'face' that you've sanded to the correct angle.
That way, you can get the alignment worked out right on the guitar (offering the neck blank to the guitar body), rather than transferring measurements between the body and a jig.
This is another technique I picked up at Sergei deJonge's shop.

John

What are the cheek angles on the tennon 10 or 15 degrees. Where do you find a router bit and do you use a guide collar on your router base? The jig looks pretty cool.

Thanks

Peter

Hi Jon -

I PM'd you regarding this, but thought I'd share the jig design I've built with everyone here as well.  I hope it's not a copy of someone else's idea...if so, sorry!  This design just made sense to me and it works very well.  I've sold 25+ of these online, all happy customers.

If this is indeed someone else's design, please let me know!  Like I said, I didn't really research this at all....it just came to me as I was making my first guitar.

NECK JIG INSTRUCTION PAGES

Cheers,

Jon

If this is indeed someone else's design, please let me know!

Just about everyone uses a variation of the same. Stew Mac also supplies plans for the same jig with their M&T or dovetail templates.

 That said, I have no such jig any longer. Another beauty of the butt joint...

Mario...I assume that you just cut the end on your table saw at a specified angle. Do you always cut the same angle? Or are you taking measurements directly from the top and using that info to set the cut angle?

Also...do you use a flat or radiused neck block? I can see where a flat neck block would eliminate a lot of flossing at the neck joint. Personally, I like the appearance of a gentle curve at the joint.

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

Hmmm...I wasn't smart enough to ask those questions, JJ. I'm doing my first couple of butt joints right now. I went ahead and cut the 1.5 degree on my TS, figuring that would get me close enough to fine tune it by flossing. I also kept the radiused neck block. Once you undercut the heel, you're left with very little material to floss out.

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Wes McMillian
Santo, TX
http://www.wesmcmillian.com

Wes...sounds like you're well on your way to accomplishing a simpler approach. You're right about the undercut heel making flossing easier.

The nice thing about the Woolson jig is that the correct tenon angle is defined as a result of projecting the neck plane to exactly where you want it to pass the bridge. That angle is then locked into the jig and the tenon is routed accordingly. That's a big improvement over the Stewmac method.

Even though I have built both jigs over time, I'm leaning toward changing to the butt joint. Who knows...I may have 2 jigs available for the next swap meet!

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

JJ, I don't do the flat block; I also like te gentle curves.

I nearly always build the body first, then use a angle finder to find my neck agle, and then yes, cut in with the table saw. I then refine with the traditional methods....

Can this jig be used for Dovetailed Joints or only straight mortise and tennon.

Should work with either of the straight or dovetail mortis and tenon cuts.

I have one that is a straight edge with a rotating head sort of like a short "T" square that is graduate in degree's like a protractor 5 degrees either way. The straight edge extends to the bridge area. Can use it for centerline and have it marked also for various scale legnths. This is for the angle of the box.
I then have a jig that put neck into and then can dial in the same angle as the box. Clamp it in and cut.

I have to say though I did not make this. It was done after a bunch of conversations with Mark Kett and a special order thing. He would deserve the credit if anyone used it!!!
I can take some pic's, but may wait until talk or get a email from him to ask if okie dokie with him, which I am sure it is. He is one of the most sharing guys there is.

I then cut the mortis with a clamp on type jig like what Lance and I use for cutting end graft shallow mortis.

Again for butt join which I am thinking of getting into, read Mario's article in GuitarMaker. Shows the process.

Showing my limited build experience here, but, Mario, do you really see a significant amount of dfference in neck angle from one to the next of the same body shape? I mean, I know each guitar is it's own animal and nothing can be assumed, but surely the difference when translated to the length of the heel comes out to be a miniscule amount, huh? I'm having trouble seeing accuracy of a quarter of a degree being translated over to the table saw for the cut, which is why I just cut the standard 1.5 degree cut. (Well, actually, I did cut just barely less than 1.5 to give myself some room. My degree of confidence is not there, yet.)

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Wes McMillian
Santo, TX
http://www.wesmcmillian.com

I hesitate to even drop this into the conversation, but I bought one of those jigs from LuthierTool. At first glance it is similar to the Fox/Woolson jig, but in addition to getting the angle of the neck right it also gets it lined up dead on center.

In addition it makes brainless work of cutting the holes in your head block for the bolts.

It is kind of expensive, but very well made and you can literally set a neck with a few swipes on the sand paper after coming out of this. There is almost no fitting required.

It is really an awesome tool.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Y'know what, Mario, forget that queation. As I pondered the "why" of it, the answer I settled on was "why not?" I mean, how simple is that - build the box, check the angle and lock it in, carry that same angle over to the TS miter guage (or I have a sliding miter table) and cut. One step and you're one. DUH!!!

But I will still ask if you find that much variation in neck angle. Just out of curiosity.

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Wes McMillian
Santo, TX
http://www.wesmcmillian.com

That's "One step and you're DONE", of course!

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Wes McMillian
Santo, TX
http://www.wesmcmillian.com

Another possibility is something I learned from Jim Olson that turns the whole process around. He cuts his dovetail in such a way as to leave the neck sitting about 1/8" above the body when seated. Then he has a jig that defines the neck angle on the plane of the neck and he re-surfaces that instead of messing with the heel. Then you just have to machine a plane instead of messing with a convoluted surface where the effects of what you do are magnified 4 times.

That system makes more sense to me for dovetails than tenons or butts and requires a certain amount of jigging to make it efficient. But I love it when I see someone lose the standard assumptions, re-think a process and turn it on it's ear in a way that works efficiently for them.

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

mario,
can i ask which traditional methods you use to help the butt joint face in the neck mate nicely with the gentle curve on the body?
does the whole butt joint face make contact with the body, or do you somehow create a slight relief on most of the face (ala taylor's old joint) so that you only need to mate the outside 1/4" of the heal?
phil

Phil, yes, I counter sink most of the surface, so that only the outer 1/4" or so indexes off the sides. No different than with a dovetail or tenon. 

Then it's a matter of chisels and swiping sandpaper between heel and body for the final fit. Even the greatest jigs shown above still need that step to make the heel fit the rounded body...

thanks for the reply mario.
it's what you refer to as 'counter sinking' the face fo the joint that i tend to make a mess of. i get the job done but it looks pretty butch.
with my limited shop tools i need to find a way to do a neater job of it - mostly to avoid embarrasment in case anyone else ever resets one of my necks - though with my threaded insert method that could possibly happen without lifting the fingerboard.
phil