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Hello! I have a question regarding a twisted neck.
I am building my first guitar and it is going really well. Though my neck, wich I have'nt built myself is a cheap "china" neck i took from some nock off guitar. I reshaped the headstock to a telecaster shape and i turned out magnificent. I built a new nut from a roe deer antler and it too turned out great. Last but not least i coated it with 4 layers of shellack. The shellack turned out great as well. All of this is my first time and so i have become really attached to this neck and it would be a shame to throw it away.

The thing is that i took it inside my house when the last coat of shellack was applied for around 2 days and now it's dry and smooth but it's also twisted! It may have occured under the longer period of time i had it in my garage with no coat. And i have a quite a diverse weather where i live. It's twisted towards the thumb at the lowest frets.

I want to fix it and i really hope i can avoid taking the fretboard off to do that bending thing with the neck. But what do you people think? Is it a ok bend to leave as it is?
By the way the guitar is going to have a standard strat hardtail bridge so intonation for each string is a yes:)

Welcome Loke from Sweden.

The good thing is that maybe your neck has done its bending, and is where it wants to be. The bad thing is that you will probably not be happy with a bent neck, no matter where it is twisted.

I'm guessing if the bottom is twisted, the neck will not mount correctly on the body. Have you checked that? It will also give problems with string relief, maybe on all notes, depending on how much twist we are talking about. I would take the fretboard off. Plane the top flat, and re-fit it to the body in the right position. You'll probably need shims, and maybe some wood glued on the neck where it mounts, for a good fit. Where the wood has to go, depends on the way it is twisted.

If if bends down, add wood on the top before planing. If it bends up, add wood so that the entire bottom of the neck seats on the body.

I don't do electric guitars, so I'm not familiar with how the necks are attached, but I think you neck could be fixed. But not without taking off the fret board.

That shouldn't be too hard.

I would rather plane flat, and add wood where needed than to try to bend it back. I don't think that it would want to stay there. Another bout with the weather, and it could be unplayable.

Others will probably give better solutions from real experience.

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Why be normal?

Hi Loke,
Here is another thought on twisted necks:
https://hazeguitars.com/blog/warped-gui ... sted-necks
If you are "lucky" you might be able to work with your neck in such a fashion, making the proper fret plane for each string. Notice that the bridge pieces on the pictured instrument appear to be set for each string also.

Clay,

I was thinking more like he had a localized twist. An "ergo" neck could work with a long twist.

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Why be normal?

Thank you very much Ken!
It has a longer twist and it seems to gradualy bend more and more towards the headstock and so it's not a drastic dip or jump anywhere om the neck.

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Here's a picture on the twist. It fits prefectly in the pocket still.

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For what it's worth I used a chinese roughed out neck on my third guitar. After about a year or mebbe 18 months it did a similar twist, very slight. I took it off (acoustic bolt-on) and am now playing it again after reworking the frets, but I don't trust it long term, so am working to finish a replacement neck I started from scratch. Last time I'll do anything other than make my own. Good luck. Roy

Thats actually the kind of answer i needed. Might just do that! Leave it and make another one if needed:)
Thank you Roy!

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Replace it twisted necks rarely can be straightened to the degree that they should be. Replace it with a neck with a double action truss rod because of your humidity swings in your climate.

It's admirable to want to save something and not pitch it but a neck is the key to the user interface of the instrument. Imperfections in the fret plane will prevent the instrument from being as playable as possible and that's a deal breaker for a guitar.

We've likely done everything possible to straighten twisted necks (professional, high volume dedicated guitar repair shop) and none of the methods produce a reliably straight neck. You will be struggling with it forever....

If someone insisted on fixing this one method would be to remove all the frets, level and shape the board, deepen the fret slots that ended up too shallow from the material removal and refret. But there is no guarantee that it will not behave differently under string tension or want to twist again. US prices for a quality refret are flirting with $500 and a new Fender Mexican neck and other choices can be had for a fraction of that. I'd replace it.

EDIT: Just read a comment implying that a neck made in China is not worthy of consideration or somehow lesser in quality. Most of the necks for guitars made in the world today are made in China or South Korea. The quality of the manufacturing is generally excellent and the old view of Chinese guitars is both dated and inaccurate.

As far as the quality of a fret plane Ibanez guitars made in China have some of the best necks in the business and that's one of the reasons these guitars found favor with shredders who like uber low action and slack tunings both require very accurate fret planes.