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Here is the general idea of how I rough out a batch of necks.

IMPORTANT
The shaper and router table operations shown here are DANGEROUS. Due to the large exposed cutters and the nature of the work that does not lend well to guards. I've been doing this for better than 25 years and I still get nervous on some of the operations. If you're not very experienced with shapers do not try this.

I've engineered all these jigs to reference from the 1/4" wide truss rod slot. The jigs all have a spline that fits into the rod slot. I'm working on a design for a clamp that also interacts with the rod slot- which would eliminate the de-sta-co's and clamps to hold the work to the jigs.

-C

Here's a stick of 12/4 Sapele laid out for 4 necks

Next we Flatten the face and square an edge


Then cut the headstock angle

I've made my own layout rule showing nut, 12th 14th end of dovetail & truss rod slot locations

Next up cut the truss rod slot. I've dedicated a small router table to this task

Here's the herd so far I think there's a dozen or so necks in this run.

Here's the mighty Shelix cutter. I finish off the heel with a spiral OCEMCO in a 3 hp router table set up because it has the opposite rotation from the shaper & handles the grain direction better.


Waste off the excess with the bandsaw and then back to the shelix to cut the shaft to width


The herd ready to put into the rack to await fitting to a body.

The last operation that I do in the fitting process is to round over with a 1 1/8" radius router bit
in the router table with the rpm set to 10000 (max for a cutter of this size)


All shop operations take place under the supervision of Daisy the shop dog...unless the sun is shining on her blanket and her eyes get heavy....zzzzzzz


I can do a run of this size in about a day.

Next I'll put together a pictoral of how I cut dovetails in the bodies and necks.
-C

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Freeborn Guitars
and home of BeauGuard©

Good stuff, Chas!!!
Too bad the rest of the world can't be as peaceful as Daisy.

Yes, she's got the life!
Amazing thing is I can have routers or machines raging and she'll sleep right through, but turn on the vacuum or extend a tape measure and she's out of there like a shot.
-C

_________________
Freeborn Guitars
and home of BeauGuard©

chas, next to a CNC, this has got to be one of the most efficient ways of buildind a batch of necks. i especially like the 1 1/8" roundover that pretty well takes care shaping the shaft. thanks for the pictures and tutorial.

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sweat the small stuff.

That Shelix cutter sure does make short work of it. Have you tried to invert the cutter and reverse the direction on the shaper? I have done it with other shaper cutters but always in conjunction with a power feeder. I feel real comfortable feeding from right to left by hand but the opposite direction gives me the willies.

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Rich S

"The inconvenience of poor quality will linger long after the thrill of a bargain has been forgotten"

Pretty much any roughing operation you'd want to do on the CNC can be done on a shaper if you're jigged up right. This is pretty much the Taylor system of neck roughing done on a manual shaper. Great system!

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

Rich,
Yes, you can invert the cutter, but it won't be in downshear orientation. I suppose if your jigging is heavy enough this won't matter, but on a heavy cut (such as the face of the peghead) there's quite alot of surface area in play, so it could get squirrely.
Yes, the left to right feed takes some getting used to, but it's do able.
In the old days (pre cnc) a true pattern shaper had 2 spindles running opposite rotation and with identical cutters. The operator would switch from spindle to spindle according to grain direction (think arch top doors and windows where you can't flip the part over). Boy howdy men were men in those days.
-C

_________________
Freeborn Guitars
and home of BeauGuard©

And occassionally fingerless.

Seriously this is very good timing. I am going though many of these same thought processes at the moment. This post was very timely. You have several clever ideas I am planning on borrowing.

And just for the record. Somewhere in that step you left out a step, because in the last couple pics it look like dovetails just "show up" on the necks. True?

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

Wow it makes me nervous just looking at that shaper.

A true pattern shaper would be real nice when I am doing a run of arched raised panel doors. The tear out on the edges is a pain in the neck especially in red oak. I shape the end grain first and then the long grain which helps allot but is not the ideal situation.
I am definitely going to give the spiral cutter head a try.
Thanks

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Rich S

"The inconvenience of poor quality will linger long after the thrill of a bargain has been forgotten"

Nice Chas,
Great tutorial. It makes me want to put a shaper on the list just to use that Shelix(what a name) cutter. Where did you get it and where did you get the 1 1/4 round over?

Great Work,
Danny

One way to deal with cutter rotation and grain direction on something as small as a neck is to make the fixture such that it has a guide surface both above and below the neck. That way, you can just flip the neck over to get the cutter going the right way with respect to the grain.

On a neck one would trim the headstock area and go halfway down the shaft and then flip the whole jig over to shape the heel and the other half of the shaft.

Mark

Yes Mark- two sided or reverseable jigs work, and are a work around for a single rotation set up.
Not shown clearly in the photo, but the round over jig is two sided (one for each side of the neck. One of the neck jigs too, although I'm not using it as such- since the spiral router set up is available.
Brock-I'd be happy to share any ideas. The dovetail method is next post. I've got the pics- maybe tonight.
The Shelix is from Byrd tool http://www.byrdtool.com/ and the round over bit is an Amana http://www.amanatool.com/
-C

_________________
Freeborn Guitars
and home of BeauGuard©

Rich--I'm not sure what you mean by "invert the cutter and reverse the direction". The cutter would be a right hand or left hand cut regardless of whether it's inverted, wouldn't it?
Nelson

Charles,

Thanks for the update! Looks pretty good! Can't wait to get mine up and running.

Safety suggestions that come to mind:

1) consider using something other than cam clamps.
2 consider upgrading destacos with nylon safety destaco clamps . Anything metal hitting that cutter is not going to be pretty.(see #1) Yikes-O-rama. Urine AND shrapnel on the floor make a nasty slipping hazzard

3) (no problem with yours, but for general info Make any fixtures with as large a base as can fit safely on the shaper. Keep a safe distance if something goes awry. Plan for the worst. More safety is better.
4) buy Grizzly's shaper book. (cuz those machines are, well, "Grizzly"!

I got my shaper for making necks, and have found some good jigs. Charlie Hoffman has some pix on his site. Terry Kennedy build some inspirational jigs, and I would consult with Todd Stock for the same. I'm a saftey and efficiency fan. I hate so see people lose fingers, etc.

I don't know whose fixture is below, but it needs a much larger base near the clamp, It's way too tippy. You don't need that thing tipping into a tall cutter. Youshouldn't be able to knock it over. Good opportunity to improve upon the prototype. (Sorry, )

oops. Poor form on my part! Please accept my apologies, I didn't need to try to post a pic for that. Gratefully, it's not there this AM. Wise choice.

Charles, you've given some great ideas that I don't think were posted here yet. Thanks again!

Npalen, to answer your question, shaper cutters are much the same as router bits as they have cutting edge which must spin in the right direction in order to work. Most shaper cutters have the advantage of being removed from the shaft and flipped over and put back on, essentially upside down. In order to cut properly the shaft rotation has to be reversed. The feed direction must also be reversed. Something to note, not all shaper cutters are designed to be flipped as is the case with Spiral down cutters which if flipped will force the wood up away from the table. As Chas has pointed out (thank you Chas) the Shelix is a spiral down cutter and should only be used in one direction. Sorry for any confusion.

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Rich S

"The inconvenience of poor quality will linger long after the thrill of a bargain has been forgotten"

Thanks for the explanation, Rich.
My mind was on the helix rather than the cutting edge.
That's what happens when one gets old.
Can't see the forest for the trees.
Nelson

I have a jig I use with the Robosander that could probably be used with the shaper just as easily except they scare the crap out of me. The Robosander actually goes pretty quickly. I thickness the headstock with a different technique, either a drill press disk sander or belt sander jig. The shaft/headstock transition area I have to do by hand. Do you have any tips as to how you do that transition Charles? Especially if you are doing a back veneer on the headstock.
Nice Stuff! Thanks for showing us your technique.
Terry

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

Good ideas Terry. I'm working on a clamping system that engages in the truss rod slot that will eliminate all the cam/toggle clamps. I'll have time to finish it up after Miami.... As for the heel shaping, I don't do it like the photo you show. That's a tad nervous for me. When I want a "Frigate" heel I have a method that's part of the body/neck joint (dovetail) process. I'll try to get the pic post of that up today.
Terrence- my method is very much the same idea as your robosand rig. Microplane also makes a drill press drum with a bearing much the same as the robosand. The shaper spins much too fast (7-10k rpm) for either of those methods. Not sure what you're asking about the headstock/neckshaft transition. the parts come off of my jigs pretty darn close. I use an edge sander (belt) to do the final thicknessing in the neck fitting and final shaping stage. When I use a back veneer I'll do the final thickness on the belt, and then veneer with a curved caul to match the radius of the sander wheel. I put a layer of heavy felt on the caul to account for irregularities. I'll post a pic of that too.
Thanks to all of you for your comments. It's nice to know that I'm not completely looney...
-C

_________________
Freeborn Guitars
and home of BeauGuard©

Chas--I'm guessing that you're going to machine a couple short t-slots down in the truss rod groove and then use a couple of those "trick" t-slot bolts.

Thanks Charles,
I'd love to see a picture of your finished neck-headstock transition. I'm just starting to do posterior veneers on the headstock and am looking for ideas. It'll be interesting to see your truss rod slot clamping system. I just use metal dowel pins and the clamps are definitely always in the way.
Thanks
Terry

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

http://www.reidsupply.com/aDetail.aspx? ... -SLOT+BOLT

This is the type of T-slot bolt I'm thinking of.
It drops down into a slot such as the truss rod groove and then is rotated to engage (or disengage) the t-slot.
Would probably required 1/4" diameter or smaller bolt.
Not too difficult to modify a hex or square head bolt to do this.
Nelson

Actually, no I'm not going to use a t bolt (or nut) arrangement, on account of it complicates the slot routing, and leaves a cavity (the "t) as a void inside of the neck.
I'm thinking along the lines of a wedge type arrangement that expands in the slot. A machinist friend suggests a cam/wedge arrangement not unlike the nifty tool Frank Ford (stewmac has them) invented for holding electric guitar jacks while tightening the nut. I'm envisioning a device that wedges and pulls the neck blank tight to the pattern with the same motion.
I'll get some headstock/veneering pics up as my camera battery is charged up.
-C

_________________
Freeborn Guitars
and home of BeauGuard©

I like the idea of the expansion caused by wedging action. Would be a "clean" way to go.
Vacuum is another option that you've probably considered.
My thinking on the t-bolts was a keyhole type t-slot with one near each end of the truss rod groove.
It would require a plunge cut with a woodruff type cutter & then a move-over to establish the undercut.
This still results in a couple cavities inside the neck. Maybe fill them with lead later for balance.