Official Luthiers Forum!

Would you be so kind as to show your neck carving jig?
Mine, cobbled up from a pallet runner has split and is no longer useable.
I bought a nice 2" x 3 3/4" x 40" long black walnut cut-off for the new one.
I'm thinking a hinged headstock end may come in handy- thoughts?

_________________
Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

Look at the third post down in this thread:

viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=55545&hilit=Total+vise

I cut a 15 degree slice off one side and glued it onto the other side, and cut a notch at the transition. The notch allows for the area where the headstock veneer sticks out a bit. The holes are for clamps to hold the neck in place. Cheap, and it works great.

Very nice, thank you.

_________________
Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

One of my kids built a Martin kit back in 1996 and Martin sold their neck carving supports back then and he bought one. I am still using it.

IMG_7096 by Terence Kennedy, on Flickr

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

Here's mine, posted this some time a go, still using it.
http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10117&t=26349

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Here is mine with a neck sitting in front.






I can move it around my workbench to gain access to various parts of the neck and turn it on its side if necessary. One thing I would do differently is make the head angle adjustable.

Here is mine. I shape all my necks with my belt sander. It's amazing how fast the rough-in goes with some 36 grit. When I get close to the final shape I change to 60-80 grit. After this, I change to the wood rasp, flat sanding blocks, and various sizes of cardboard tubes, with sticky back sand paper. The round tubes are for finishing out the curved areas at the heel and the transition of the neck to the peg head. I have never carved one.
The belt sander also doubles as the shaper, for my bridge wings. Flip up the drum and us a block of plywood to get the wing thickness close, and then layers of wood veneer to tune it in. l also can use this setup to thickness the peg head.