Making a guitar neck from a blank

Higgins Mike - 05:55pm Apr 12, 1998

I have made just one acoustic guitar from "scratch". The biggest single problem that I had was making the neck. I know that I can buy a neck that is ready to sand and finish, but I enjoy making as much of the guitar from raw wood. My problem is making the neck. I had a real difficult time matching the neck to the taper of the fingerboard and planeing the back of the headstock to the correct thickness. I used the "Gurian" method of attatching the neck to the body(wood dowel pins instead of the traditional "dovetail". I would really appreciate anyones information on carving a neck from "scratch" Thanks in advance. Mike Higgins

Check the "Library" option here; I think there are some discussions there. I like neck making; with a decent bandsaw and a sanding table it's a snap. However, I've also used a sabresaw and made laminated necks. You can flatten the back of the headstock, leaving a little Martin-like diamond. with a belt sander. Be sure the work is clamped down---or, clamp the sander upside down in your vise and hold the neck. Just don't get carried away with the power tools (been there, done that...) For controlled shaping I really like a spokeshave and a cabinet scraper--don't sell them short, they'll work far faster than you'd expect looking at them. As for tapering the neck and fretboard, do this: set a couple of brads into the face of unprofiled neck. Press and tap the fingerboard to mark the back of the fretboard, then drill a bit to enlarge the marks so the board sits flat against the neck. Now, either clamp or glue (using a little cheap white glue) the fretboard to the neck, and profile them together. You can pop the board off again to do inlays, and always get it back in the exact same place. ... Jed

Mike,

I like to shape the heel using a method that's found in a book By Overholtzer called Classic guitar Making. I think most people find this book a little "out there" but this part was very useful. He uses a table saw, miter gauge, and stop block to make a very stylish looking and perfectly symetrical heel. From there I use rasps and a spindle sander and then finish up with a scraper and sandpaper. I also use the rasps to file away the curvature of the neck and finish up with sandpaper and a scraper. I've been using dowels to attach the neck to the body but I've never heard of a "Gurian Method" can you describe it? If you have a thickness sander or a spindle sander with a fence you could thickness the headstock and then glue it to the neck.

I've built only one necked instrument, a mandolin. I thought the neck would be the hardest part, but found it was the easiest. I used the method described by Irving Sloane in his book on building steel stringed guitars. He uses dowels as "keys" to lock the neck joint into the head block. As for profiling the fretboard and neck, I did as he suggested and left the neck a little wide (about 1/32" on each side) after I had shaped it with a spokeshave, rasp, and sandpaper. Then I glued on the profiled fretboard and trimmed the neck down to meet it.

Mike,

Don't give up yet! Remember, experience will come with repeated efforts and an open mind. Go ahead and try different techniques. I've used all of the ones listed here. They all work. Each luthier has methods that work for them. Don't be afraid to leave the traditional path. The idea here is that building should be something you enjoy and if one method doesn't work for you...try another. Practicing on pine blanks is cheap and easy. It may not approximate the same grain and hardness of common noeck stock but hey every piece of wood is different. Go for it!

Taking a drawknife to a neck blank is one of the absolute joys of lutherie...

FWIW, I like the Overholtzer method of using the tablesaw to ramp the heels. It just makes everything else about shaping the heel just that much easier, and it's extremely fast. I will admit that I didn't get the technique from Overholtzer's book, but indirectly via John Calkin's article on Charles Fox's ASL in the last couple GAL American Luthiery issues.

Also FWIW, I like to use bolts for attaching the neck, but I'm playing with a couple different ideas for this critical joint, including an "internal heel" design, but nothing's solid yet. I'm sure somebody's done this before, and I just need the time to research it. Otherwise, I look forward to the exercise.

I have a neck related question, when cutting the neck pocket on a solid body would it be better to rout it before I profile the body or after. I done some minor repairs before and this is my first attempt at constructing from scratch.

I've done it both ways many times. If yor pocket routing jig is accuratly set up to be in line with the centerline of the body do it after the body is cut out. If your not really shure about the allignment or if the blank dosn't have a center seam, or if your going with an opaque finish you can cut out the body after the route. I always finish up any cutaways after the neck has been glued on unless it's a traditional hollow body then everything has to be more exact.

Peter, rout the neck pocket before you do anything other than profiling the rough body blank. You'll want to clamp it down for routing, and any body contours will make the body tend to rock under the clamps. Better yet, make a template of your neck pocket from plywood, clamp that to your body, and use a pattern makers bit to cut the pocket. If the template is well made and lined up on center almost nothing can go wrong. Make several passes, since deep cuts can suck the bit right out of the router collet and ruin your day.

BTW, Charles Fox had some very amusing things to say about the Overholtzer book which he asked to have edited out of the article I wrote. Suffice it to say that the trick of rough shaping the heel on the table saw was the only good idea he took from the book. Old Arthur had a real attitude, and whether you heed his lessons or not he's fun to read.

I have been thinking about shaping my next neck with a offset "v" shaped back. to explain what i mean, the back of necks are allmost allways rounded, i want to shape it allot more like a "v" but with the center of the V up a bit higher than center to better copy the shape of a hand. has any one had any luck with this befor me ( i know some one has done something like this befor me )

I built a six-string bass this spring, and I found that a through-body neck is much less hassle than a bolt-on or mortise/tenon joint. A six-string is a real log, and it took quite a lot of rasping and sanding. For the neck/headstock joint, I sawed the end of the neck at a shallow angle, 12-15 degrees, glued the headstock on, sawed the excess, and put the fingerboard on. I've seen this joint on some nice basses, and it is inherently strong. By the way, where would I find a spoke shave, and how much are they? I don't think that's something Home Depot would carry.

You'd be suprised at what Home Depot would carry. I would not doubt that you would find one in the hand tools section. I believe they carry the stanley brand (not my first choice). You will definetly find one at most any woodworking store that supplies tools as well as wood. My tried and true method is to frequent flea markets and antique shops, as well as to let people know what you are looking for. I bought several over the years for as little as $2-$3. Generally I think they will run about $15-$20.

How To Make A Spokeshave

Yikes! For such a simple-sounding tool, those are some pretty complicated instructions on that web site. If I actually go and look at one, I think I can figure it out. I've never actually seen a spokeshave; I just know of its existence. Kinda like UFOs. I used a big, nasty rasp on my bass neck, and that took the wood off pretty quickly, but a spokeshave sounds more precise. As a side note, I have to rebuild that bass because the neck is too heavy. DOH!! I could rasp it down to the truss rod, but I don't think it's going to help. Maple turned out to be the wrong choice for a six-string bass neck. Bummer. Now I get to learn guitar repair!

Kevin Lux said:

Yikes! For such a simple-sounding tool, those are some pretty >complicated instructions on that web site.

If I actually go and look at one, I think I can figure it out. I've never >actually seen a spokeshave;

-Hal Laurent

May as well jump in here. To make a neck from scratch, I start off with a board roughly 3" wide by about 7/8" thick. Rather than band saw the headstock and heel block out of a single piece I glue mine. I prefer doing it this way because: 1) it gives a stronger headstock since the grain runs parallel, 2) it wastes less wood, 3) my bandsaw is crap and stalls if I try to cut anything thicker than about 1/2"

To do the actual shaping of the neck and heel I start off with a spokeshave. I bought mine at Canadian Tire years ago. Lee Valley sells some nicer ones but that's for when I'm a rich and successful luthier (when WHAT freezes over?). (Note to Kevin: Spokeshaves are essentially a small plane. Make sure the blade is sharp and not protruding too much from the body.) To shape the heel block I use a combination of chisels, gouges, and files. I occasionally use a saw rasp. These can be made simply by taping five or six bandsaw blades together at both ends (alternating the direction of the teeth) then putting some sort of spacer in between them, e.g. 1/8" plywood. A saw rasp removes a lot of wood quickly and leaves large gouges.

My favourite toy for doing final shaping is an inflatable sanding drum chucked in my drill press. (Again available from Lee Valley, my favourite toy store.) Unlike regular hard sanding drums this can handle compound curves easily.

Neck shaping is actually one of the more enjoyable parts of instrument building. Word of warning, though. If you're not duplicating a neck glue on the fretboard before you do the final shaping. that way you'll get a better idea of how the end result will feel.

As for material I'd just as soon not use hard maple for anything that requres hand tools. My favourite is walnut which is an absolute joy to work, although good quality mahogany isn't bad either.

Would I be more or less correct in asking; to start to make a neck, do I just start out with a piece of wood, roughly the shape of the neck, taking into account the thickness that will be added in gluing on the fretboard, and get down to shaping it from there? How do I install the truss rod? Any recommendations for what to use for the truss rod? I have made bodies for guitars, and done modifications galore, but I haven't attempted the neck yet.

There is an excellent section on making a guitar neck in: Guitarmaking: Tradition and Technology, by William R. Cumpiano, Jonathan D. Natelson. It is for an acoustic guitar neck, but I applied the principles to making a bolt on neck for my electric guitar. I routed the slot for my trussrod on a router table. It worked great. I purchased a trussrod, but that book also has a good section on how to make one.

Kevin Birmingham

A piece of advice from me--don't make maple your first choice for the neck. Unless you can shave every last micron possible off of it, I'd go with a lighter wood like ash or koa (at least I think they're lighter, anyway). I made a six-string bass with a maple neck and the sucker points to the floor! I had to use 15 bucks worth of quarters as a counterbalance until I deemed it unplayable until I could get some more tools. I think I can fix my problem without having to build a new neck, but you're best off using the lightest woods possible for that first one. It's hard to know how much wood you can shave off once you've notched out for the truss rod. I was afraid of rasping right through and having to start over, so I didn't take off as much wood as I should have. I learn the hard way.

Hi Kevin,

With all due respect, I'm of the opposite opinion - maple is a fine choice for a neck.

I think ash would make a very poor choice, because it has a tendency to split along the grain lines (through the early wood - the open pored part), and so could potentially be very weak around the headstock/neck area, though a scarf joint there should be ok.

I'd be willing to bet that the main problem with your bass is not the amount of wood your removed when shaping the neck, but the weight of six big machine heads, combined with a relatively large distance from the tip of the top horn to the headstock (giving the heads a large lever to act on), and possibly the small mass of the body - especially true for a small body made from relatively light wood. Such a guitar is never likely to balance.

The amount you shave off it is not going to make a whole lot of difference, IMHO. Almost certainly if you shaved the neck down to the absolute minimum it wouldn't fix it. Worse, especially with a six string, is that an ultra thin neck is much more likely to warp.

The fix to the problem isn't going to be easy. You could move the strap button attachment toward the head as far as possible, but if it's already on the tip of the upper horn, there's not a lot you can do (other than replace the body.) If you do replace the body, try to make it bigger to give you more mass there, or use a denser timber.

Where is the strap button now, in relation to the frets? In my (limited) experience, you need to make the strap button on the top horn reach out at least to the 14th fret for a 4 string, maybe further for 5/6 string guitars.

I'm sorry that all this is not really good news for you, but perhaps it's food for thought for other folks out there in the process of designing a bass.

Cheers Andrew

Well, I learn something new every day. You may have saved me a lot of aggravation. What's a denser wood than maple for a body? I like the maple neck because it's solid and has a sharp attack. The body is definitely going to be redone. The strap button is at the 14th fret, but I came up a couple frets short of where I wanted to be for the top horn. Not only that, the shape is awkward enough so that I can't sit and play with it resting on my leg. It's too wide, and the top horn sticks out too far instead of bending back toward the neck. It looks more like an anchor than a bass at the moment. I'm not too brokenhearted because I'd like to have a quilted maple veneer on it anyway.

Hi Guys. This is my first message here. From my experience, maple is an amazing neck wood, as is a nice chunk of quartersawn mahogany (not for a bass though). I've made a 6-string bass with lightweight wood bodies (swamp ash) a maple neck, and it turned out to a well-balanced instrument. Good sounding too.The only slightly off-balance guitar that I've made was a 7-string hybrid electric/acoustic classical guitar.

Here's my spill on neck construction: I usually use a quatersawn blank and cut a 13 degree angle into one end, and then glue a piece of the same width on it, long enough to accomodate the headstock. I then cut most of the protrusion above the fingerboard surface with a bandsaw, and then level what's left on the belt sander. Now you are ready to rout the truss rod groove. I do that on a table mounted router(upside down) using a 1/4" roundnose bit. I use thisbit because when the truss rod is glued in, it fits ever so snugly in this groove with no play or possibility of rattling once the filler strip is glued in properly.I always use the 2-way universal truss rod that they sell at stew-mac 'cause I've had great luck with it. I cut the groove to a 3/8"depth. Make sure you make snug grooves for the truss rod anchors. Wax the truss rod before you glue it in the neck. This makes all the difference. No cracking sounds or seizing later on. If it's an electric guitar/bass, I also set in steel t-nuts in to the heel of the neck for attachment to the body. The ones I use have a 3/4" diameter flange to them. I cut these with a 3/4" Forstner bit. I later join the neck using 1/4*1" allen head machine screws. Beats the hell out of wood screws without adding too much work to the construction. Much more durable in the long run.

I then glue the fretboard on. The width-profile (neck width at nut to with at 22nd fret) of the neck is taken care of via a plywood template and a bearing guide flush trim bit on the router table. The taper in the neck thickness is done via a drill press chucked safe-t-planer with 3/32" taper at the 12th fret. You then thickness the headstock to whatever you need, depending on the type of guitar. Fretboard radius is achieved with adhesive backed sandpaper stuck to radiused wooded blocks, done after the fretboard has bee levelled on a piece of marble or granite abotu 4 feet long and 4" wide covered also with adhesive backed sandpaper (my choice is 3M Stickit). It's worked weel for me for a long time. I'm always open to suggestions though.

Oh, forgot to mention: I never leave less than 1/8" of wood between the base of the truss rod cavity and the back of the neck (you still can get a pretty thin neck this way). If I'm reinforcing with graphite rods as in my 7-string electrics, I space the rods 3/16" on each side of the truss rod groove, so that you can still get a nice fast-feeling neck. I've since retired my spokeshave and hand-forged drawknife in favor of an air-powered die grinder fitted with rotary rasps or files. This is a lot quicker, and you can get really consistent results easily. Final sanding is done with the afore-mentioned inflatable sanding drum.

Holy schmoly! Is that ever a description on building a neck or what? I'll have to file that one away for sure. And you build 7-string electrics, too? I've been looking for info on that. Where do you find bridges for those? Are they much more expensive than 6-string bridges? I've never seen an air-powered die grinder. Is it kind of like a souped-up Dremel? I like the sound of that idea. I used a hand rasp on that 6-string bass neck. OOOHHH, MY ARM!!! Do you cut the fret slots before or after leveling and sanding? The board warps after the slots are cut, so I would think it would become difficult to level. With the correct tools, how long does it take to whip out a neck?

Hi Kevin. I'm so glad that I found a place where I can talk shop. As you probably have found, 7-string bridges for electric guitars are a little hard to come by, to say the least. For a tremolo 7-string that I built, I used the Ibanez Lo-Pro Edge trem. Not my favorite way of doing things, but who else makes one? This is a VERY expensive unit, coming in at about $300 US, which has to be the most expensive bridge that I ever bought. For fixed bridge electric 7-string, I get my bridges machined by a friend at a machine shop. I then fit it with Graph tech Tele saddles. As for the die grinder, yes, it's a really souped up version of a dremel. Safety glasses are an absolute must when working with this thing. Watch out. You can get one in the air tool section of many tool places. Home Depot, or in my case Reno Depot in Quebec carries a Campell Hausfeld one for only about $30 Cdn. The rotary rasps and files set you back about $3 each, and they last a very long time. Pretty cheap considering the time you save, especially if you plan to do a few instruments.

You need at least a 4 HP compressor to run this thing because it takes a lot of air. Cutting the fret slots is the first thing I do after planing the fretboard to the correct thickness. If I don't bind it using plastic binding I use either ebony or rosewood or maple strips (depending on the fingerboard) because I don't like to see the fret tangs on the sides of the neck. I can't actually say that I ever remember having the problem of the board warping though, after cutting the fret slots. It always stays pretty flat. I only level it after it has been glued to the neck, on the marble plate with the sandpaper. It doesn't get much straighter than this. How long? Hmm....All depends how fancy I'm getting. If we're talking about a no frills neck without the fancy headtock veneers, and multi-laminated woods, I can usually turn one out in a day (a 12 hr day mind you), that's including enough time to let the glue set up. I cut the fret slots on a table saw with a jig and templates though, so it only takes me about 10 mins to slot a fretboard.

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