Official Luthiers Forum!

I am a new acoustic guitar builder in the Northeast and I am looking for CNC manufacturers that can produce a neck to my specs. I have been buying "ready-made" necks as part of a kit. I then spend a lot of time filing and sanding down to my liking. After working out the bugs during the prototype stage, I want a consistant, high quality component (at a fair price) that is ready to assemble.

Does anyone have advice or suggestions?

Thanks, Paul

Welcome to the forum.
How long have you been building?
we would love to see some of your work.

Give Saint Lutherie a ring.
He is a sponsor here and can make necks to your specs.

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Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

John Watkins, cnc guitar parts.

Please note that John has just relocated to Illinois and expanding capacity. He will have a new number.

As Peter said, I make necks for various clients (all to their specific specs). You can get in touch using any method on my website, or I can give you a call if you e-mail me your phone number and a good time to call. Welcome to the forum!

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

Yep John Watkins offers great necks in several varieties. He has indeed moved to a greatly expanded facility but his email address is the same and you can email him at john (at) cncguitarparts.com. Of course the (at) is actually an "@" just trying to protect John from spam bots.

Hi:
I have purchased several from Hanalei Moon, fabulous quality, quick turn around. Just Google the name.
Good Luck, Mikey

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The Biggest Little City, Nevada
www.hammondguitars.com
I love building guitars!

My suggestion would be to make your neck own from scratch. I believe it's the best advice I could give a new builder. After you have built a few necks then decide on whether you wish to continue to build your own or assemble kits. Leave the CNC'd necks for the guys who are trying to build a guitar a month.

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

I am trying to build 5 a month...right now it is taking me 2 months to build 5 of them

This is the reason I invested in my own CNC router and am in the progress of designing my own neck VIA CNC.

I am already making my own bridges, which I designed myself. My own custom necks will follow soon as I am working on the CAD for them right now.

One thing that you have to consider is that it takes time and or money to design a neck in CAD, then convert that image to CAM, and finally convert that into machine code so that the machine knows how to make the cuts. If you have done the work in CAD, then this speeds up the process and will save you some money. If not, you will have to pay someone to do all of this for you before someone can actually put the neck in their CNC machine. This can get costly in a hurry. If you want a true "custom" neck, this is what it takes to get there.

As JJ said, it may be faster and cheaper in the long run to either buy a pre-cut neck or just make your own.

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Reguards,

Ken H

Be aware that to build to your specs will in-tell a minimum order per specification quantity and set up fee. This Lilly to be more than you bargained for unless you have a pretty good yearly out-put.

John Watkins is going to offer off the shelf necks is a few common center-laminate combos and scale lengths but it will be a while before he has the stock built up to start offering them. the last communication he said maybe in 4-5 months he will be ready to sell the stock necks.

I believe Johns programing charge for custom necks is a one time charge of $1k and around $100 per neck but I am not sure what the minimum order quantity is.

I'm actually ordering from Hanalei Moon very soon. From what i've seen they're fantastic quality and have a lot of options to choose from and aren't very expensive.