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Hey folks....my first neck here....thought I would submit some photos and ask for opinions on which steps are next. The headstock end of the trussrod needs some attention for a better fit. It's about 3 - 5 thou proud of the plane of the neck. I am not comfortable trying to clamp that out when I put the fingerboard on. Some of you may notice that there is no tenon sticking out of the neck. I cut it off...by accident of course...so now I will have a butt-n-bolt neck.

So..what next? I am thinking I should be carving the back and the heel right now...after that I can start fitting the neck to the box.

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There is no difference between the man that thinks he can....and the man that thinks he cannot.

Hi Sniggly;

As you so kindly offered advice to me, I will offer my two cents here.

When I first start a guitar, I lay out the whole instrument on paper, poster board or a clean area on a work bench (I can't find one anymore). Just to get the neck angle and bridge height roughed in.
Assuming this will be a pinned bridge guitar, and you have the neck joint surface at the correct angle and surfaced flat (being that it is now a bolt-on), also making sure the surface of the body is on an even plane and flat, (sides meeting are even not one side higher than the other, sand or scrape even if needed).
With the truss rod, I typically route a channel a little deeper than the height of the truss rod, (1/32")
with enough angle downward (toward the body) to clear the soundboard thickness and enter the head spar brace about middle way. Sometimes I cut out the top and run the truss rod at less angle. Depends on the instrument.
I then drill two small holes centered in the neck block of the guitar where I want the bolts to go.
Clamp the neck to the guitar in the position it will mount, you might have to make up some blocks , wedges etc..to help hold it secure long enough to reach inside and mark the cooresponding holes in the neck. Makes sure you have the neck mated very closely to the guitar at this point. Any additional scraping or sanding will cause a poor seat. Remove the neck and drill for inserts. Inserts installed, drill the body holes tight enough to retain the bolts so as not to have them fall out on there own. I like to thread them into the neck block with just my fingers.
Re-attach the neck and tighten the bolts, check the neck angle and plane alignment (with the soundboard) as well center line of the guitar. At this point you should be able to tell what the height of the bridge will need to be as well as truss rod clearance and heel carving. You can make some adjustments if needed by removing neck material. On a dread with a flat area at the neck this should be rather easy to get a nice fitting purchase.
What I usually do at this point is finish the fret board, frets included, Depending on your edge binding and/or purfling you may have to attach the fret board before fretting. Either way, after your truss rod filler piece is glued in and dried I take small hand plane and plane away the excess filler, being very careful not to slide off to the sides and scar the neck/fingerboard surface, it will show later if you do.
It is very important that the neck be as flat as possible on top. I run mine through a 6 ft jointer to insure uniformity before ever cutting the head stock angle off. So if you have a high spot, even in the truss rod itself, use a 1/2" thick block wrapped in emory cloth to sand away the high spot on the truss rod, again being careful not to make marks in the neck edges on top.
Now, you should be ready to start carving your neck and heel. after all that is done you should have a very nicely fitting bolt-on neck.
Again, this is how I do a bolt-on, so it is just one opinion. I probably left some things out,so feel free to PM me for any further questions. If you find this helpful.
N.C.

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Nehemiah Covey
www.coveysacoustics.com

Well let's see. The fingerboard side of the neck is dead flat (did the jointer thing).

A good friend mentioned that attaching and radiusing the fingerboard last would help a lot in terms of level and avoidance of the 14th fret hump issue.

So the holes in the neck block need to be EXACT in size? I thought they might be just a tad over size for adjustment purposes....although....then you might be creating a problem in the future with neck resets. I'll have to go out to the shop and run some mock-ups on that.

Thanks!
Chris

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There is no difference between the man that thinks he can....and the man that thinks he cannot.

I'd make sure the profile and width of the heel that butts against the guitar is what you want and hollow out the center so only about 1/8- 3/16" of the edge butts against the guitar. Clamp the fretboard on, fit it to the guitar and figure out where your inserts will go using a transfer punch through the neck block holes. (Drilled a little oversize) Put in the inserts, get the angle and centerline alignment right and get the cheeks to fit well with a fretboard clamped on and the heelcap glued on and the bolts snugged up.
Then, after getting the truss rod fit better, glue on the fretboard. Finally carve the neck, level the fretboard, and fret.
That's pretty much how I do it anyway.
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.

This sounds like very good advice.

There has been good advice given here on path to follow.

I have one question on the truss rod fit though. When I viewed the picture the truss rod appears proud at the nut end but recessed an equal amount at the joint end. I have had several truss rods where this was caused by a slightly oversized weld on the truss rod nut. and have been able to resolve with a couple quick passes of a med fine bastard on the high truss rod nut to level off the weld or bring the both truss rod nuts into level. I have seen the stock the truss rod nut was made from at the top of the tolerance of bar stock specs and the nut at the other end at the lower side of bar stock tolerance causing a similar scenario.

If I am seeing right about one end of the truss rod is proud and the other is not, before I would add depth to the truss rod slot I would first mic the depths of the slot at both ends and verify that the slot is shallow. It is a lot less risky to file .003”-.005” off the bottom of the truss rod nut than re-index in a tapered neck for re-slotting.

Filing .003-.005 off the truss rod nut will not hame the truss rod.