Neck-Thru Build Pics

[Gordon Bellerose]

Nice work Gordon!
Will you use a natural finish on this neck?

I haven't completely decided yet, but I'm leaning toward a natural finish, with just a touch of amber.
The fantastic woods in this guitar will show best without much color.

[Gordon Bellerose]

I am getting a bit closer in the shaping department.

First. On this build I am using joinery biscuits in between the neck and body halves.
I don't usually use them, but I want to assemble the pieces for shaping, and then separate them again to further shape the neck, and body. The biscuits will hold things nice and solid while I'm working. Trust me, this information was gained at a cost in a previous build.
If you are going to use joinery biscuits, or dowels, make sure they are in a place where they will not interfere with any of the body cavities or contours.



Second. I use double-stick tape, and put the templates onto the neck and body.





I use a bearing guided router bit in my router table. I shape the neck and body joint as one unit.
You can see that I have a clamp on the body to hold it together.



And here, the neck-body joint shaping is done. Just some sanding to do now.
I will disassemble the pieces, and then it will be easier to shape the underside of the neck. That's next.

[Gordon Bellerose]

I got out into the shop tonight and spent a bit of time on the build.

All I did is cut the headstock area to the same width as the nut. The headstock wings will be glued on soon.

I cut it on the bandsaw first, and then tidied up the edges with the router, using the same setup as with shaping the neck.

[Gordon Bellerose]

I had a bit of time in between gluing binding, and waiting for finish to dry on yet another build, so I started to shape the neck/body area on the neck-thru.

I use my spindle sander with an 80 grit tube.



And here is the rough shape. I will use the overhead router with a 3/4 roundover bit, and shape the sides of the neck, and tie it all together when the body halves are glued on. There will also be some shaping on the body, just to make access to the upper frets a bit easier. Some of that will be with the sander, some with the router, and the rest will be by hand.

[Gordon Bellerose]

It's now time to rout the wiring channel into the lower bout.
I like to put this channel at the bottom of the pickup rout. The humbucker rout will be about 1 inch deep, so the bottom of the channel is also 1 inch deep.

I have a round bit in the router, with a guide clamped to the table. I have indexing marks on the guide, to let me know where the bit is exactly, and marks on the body side, so that I know how far to go.
Stand the body on is edge against the guide, lower it onto the turning bit carefully, using the marks.



And here is the finished channel. Note that the biscuits will not interfere with it.

[Jason Rodgers]

Wow, you did that heel profile on the spindle sander?!

[Gordon Bellerose]

Wow, you did that heel profile on the spindle sander?!

Yeah, it wasn't hard really. You have to have an idea of where you are going, and keep the piece moving on the spindle.
The profile you see now, will change considerably before it's done too.
This guitar is going to have 24 frets, so access to those upper frets will be very important.

My next step will be to start shaping the back of the neck. I will show pics of that also.

[Gordon Bellerose]

I've been doing some more shaping around the neck/body area.
So far everything has been done on the spindle sander.



The pieces are still separate for easier access.



I've also put a bit of an angle cut on the lower bout for upper fret access. Again with the spindle sander with an angle on the table.
There is still a lot of work to do. Scrapers and sandpaper for most of the rest.

[Barry Daniels]

A good rasp is a lot quicker than a scraper or sandpaper.

[Gordon Bellerose]

A good rasp is a lot quicker than a scraper or sandpaper.

Yes, I agree Barry. Rasps are a part of the arsenal I will use.
I'm not sure how useful they will be in the rounded out parts though. I'm thinking that I will get it as close as possible and then finish up with flap wheel sanders.

[Gordon Bellerose]

Here is the setup I use for starting my neck profile. This is a home built overhead router jig.



Here's a shot of the 3/4 round over bit in the router. I double stick tape the finger board template back on the neck to guide the bit.
I also use a 1/16 shim on the nut end. This gives me a 1/16 taper in thickness from nut, to end of neck. Sorry, no picture of that.



I've also been using my spindle sander, spokeshave, rasps, and flapwheels to shape the neck, and carve out the back of the body a bit.
Here is the result. It's getting close, but will still require some work.

Oh yeah. It is still separate pieces, not a really ugly glue job!

[Hans Bezemer]

Good that you made some progress. I find this thread very informative.

[Gordon Bellerose]

It has been tough to find time to work on this project, with lots of snow falling that needs to be shoveled, Christmas shopping with my wife, and a few guitar repairs in the shop. Finally got to work on it this morning, so I thought I would post the pictures.

I decided to cut the extra material off of the top body piece, to have better access for shaping in my jig. I still have the offcut, and will use it as a gluing caul.
It is easier to deal with the pieces while still separate, so as not to have the neck in the way.

This is my tummy cut jig. I have drawn a few different shapes on the front, and then lined up a few cauls to hold the different body shapes in the jig while cutting. The cauls are all in slotted holes for adjustment.



Here is a shot of the back. I made this jig adjustable for different angles for different body shapes and players preferences.



Here is a shot of the top body half. The cut has already been made on the band saw, and will need a bit of clean-up using a rasp, scrapers, and sanding on the spindle sander.



And in this pic, the work is almost done. It will need some hand sanding now, just to clean up the lines, and really smooth it out.

[Hans Bezemer]

Cool Jig

[Gordon Bellerose]

This is what the body part looks like in the jig. Pretty simple actually.
It holds it really solidly, and at the correct angle while sawing.

[Gordon Bellerose]

I found a bit of time this morning to work on the guitar, so I thought I would start on the forearm bevel.

Here, I use a stationary belt sander to hog off most of the wood I want to remove. (the sander is turned off for me to take a picture)



And after a bit of rasp work this is what it looks like. The bevel will carry down into the neck block a bit.
I like the look of a nice clean, machined line, so the bevel will not be sanded down and rounded into the body.



Here's another angle that shows why I went with the layers of wood. The edges will be rounded off a bit before I'm done.

[Gordon Bellerose]

Had a couple of hours this morning, so after gluing the headstock wings on yesterday, I decided to mark and cut it to rough shape.

I had thought that I might use Zebrawood for the wings, but after considering it for a while I decided that the headstock would look too busy, and went with flamed maple instead.



And here is the rough cut. It needs some sanding and shaping both with the spindle sander and an orbital sander.

[Troy Stotts]

Great job would love to see the finished project strung up and ready.

[Gordon Bellerose]

Great job would love to see the finished project strung up and ready.

You and me both Troy!
If there is one thing I've learned about guitar building, it is this.

Haste definitely makes waste. Expensive waste, I might add. I believe that every builder has some really expensive "Waste" sitting in the spare parts wood bin.
And for me, the journey of the build is where a lot of the enjoyment is.

And because this is only my second neck-thru, I'm still learning as I go along. I'm certainly no expert. There is still lots of room for improvement, and lots of opportunity for error.

[Gordon Bellerose]

[quote="Gordon Bellerose"]Here's a shot of my body wings. I have left the bottom layers square to make it easier to clamp to the neck during the gluing process.



Well, that idea went out the window, that's for sure.
I had to cut the extra wood off to shape the body parts. It is just easier to handle them when separate.

I ran the body halves through the router table, to get the edge profile I wanted. The top layer of Zebrawood is rounded over so the layer of maple underneath looks like a binding.



Here is a couple pics of the edge profile. The belly cut, and the forearm cut still need some work, but that will have to happen after glue-up.