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What's happening in this photo? It looks like the neck is still rectangular in cross section and the operator of the spokeshave is starting to do the rough shaping of the neck profile. With the neck attached to the body. If that's what's going on, what would be the reason for doing this with the neck attached and does anyone here do this? Or is something else going on here?

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Maybe the guitar builder wants to closely match the neck to the cutaway and is doing that with the neck in place?

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Peter Havriluk

Probably a classical built in the Spanish tradition. I do it this way; most of the classical builders I know do too.

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

On my guitars that have a cutaway, I have the side blend into the heel like that but I do 99% the neck carving with the neck off the body. For the cutaway-side of the heel, I take that down so that it's almost flush with the side with the neck off the body and then do the very final blending (last 1/32" or so) with the neck on.



That would make sense. It didn't occur to me because I don't see a lot of classical guitars with a cutaway or with a heel with that shape.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Another tipoff that it's probably a classical - no fretboard inlays.

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Robbie O’Brien carves with the neck on.

Probably one of the ways outlier techniques become main-streamed: a 'this is how I do it' post/blog/online tutorial/book turns up in search results often enough to be replicated by those looking for solutions. I like a flush heel on a cutaway, but other than the initial trim and final flush fit checks, carve them off the body.

I did a series of replacement archtop necks when converting Artcore archtop guitars to various flavors of Greek and Turkish shorter-scale, multi-course formats. We had a special set of tools to allow for a bolt-on joint on a f-holed body (a long, long 4 mm wrench and a magnetic gripper tool to get the bolts started). Had these been dovetailed necks, we'd have done the fit with temporary steel shims and lived with the extra fitting of the wood shims come assembly time. Either way, the bulk of the carving was done/would have been done off the body.

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

I'd say most classical builders build on a solera, face down, based on tradition. Robbie and some other classical builder "purists"--as I'd call them--take tradition further and shape the entire neck after the sides and top are glued to the neck. It makes for slow and careful going carving the heel where the sides meet it. Others do as much heel carving as possible on the bare neck before attaching the sides. Building classicals with a neck joint is slowly gaining wider use.

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

I think the traditional methods required greater skill with hand tools and relied less on jigs and fastenings. It entails a greater degree of "workmanship of risk" that many of us wish to forgo. With a separate neck/body construction I can bin the neck if the router slips.

True statement. "Traditional" to me means no sandpaper, no drum sanders, no table or bandsaws, no digital calipers, no humidity control, no spray rigs. Much more reliance on touch and feel. It shows when looking at early instruments. There was a lot more acceptance of tool marks, asymmetry and other imperfections that don't go over so well these days. But they accomplished amazing things with what they had. Wonder what will be said of what we've accomplished 100 years from now with our "meager" equipment.

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com