Advice Requested for Bolt-On Neck Order of Operations

[Pete Halliday]

I am planning to build a couple guitars using a neck joint inspired by Taylor's current approach where the heel is set fully into a mortise and there is a fingerboard extension of the neck shaft that is bolted through the top into a shelp on the neck block. The heel will be more of a Gibson look from the outside which has the benefit of straight sides that should be easier to mate into the body more cleanly than a shaped heel like Martin, Taylor, etc. use. So my question is, in what order would you cut the mortises for neck? It would be easiest to do that job on the block itself before anything is put together, but that then requires all of the subsequent gluing steps to go just about perfectly from an alignment perspective. Routing the mortises on the fully assembled body makes me nervous thinking about it, but I don't think that it should be too complicated to build an appropriate jig to hold the body and associated templates. One final note is that for aesthetic reasons, the sides are not necessarilygoing to be flat/planar as wide as the neck heel--it won't be a huge curve but it will have a little bit. Anyway, if anyone has experience with trying something like this I'd love your feedback on what worked and what didn't. Thanks.

[Dave Meyrick]

I follow Trevor Gore's technique for a bolt on neck. A straight tenon and mortice with bolts going through the head block into a brass bar in the heel. I don't do the bolt on of the end of the fretboard just glue the overhang to the top. I am a litttle scared of the rather precise woodwork for that. He calls it a bolt on bolt off neck joint. If you could get hold of his and Gilet's book it is very well described.

However to your question I cut the mortice after the box is put together. I wouldn't trust everything to go together doing the block first. I have a rather crude looking but effective jig . The secret is to get the surface the router rests on at right angles to your center line. I don't have a specific mechanism for this but use spirit levels then clamp up. My sides are always curved there but this doesn't change things much. Clearly you need to be clamping at the edges of the sound board not the middle! Lots of cork! I have now quite a few using this method

So good luck with the build Dave

[Carl Dickinson]

Check out Sylvan Wells approach to this. I'm working on two jumbos using his method. http://wellsguitars.com/Articles/Double_Tenon.php

[Pete Halliday]

I like both of these ideas and may reconsider the inset heel idea. Thanks for sending the suggestions. Routing after assembly does seem like it's probably the smarter way to do this.

[Sylvan Wells]

Thanks for the kind words about my neck joint. I have now completed at least 100 instruments with this joint. No problems or complaints from customers at all!