tom bigsby & neck angle.

[Dave Tays]

so i didn't give a lot of info the other night with my question. so i thought i would try again. so I am new to guitar building and need some advise. I am building a solid body guitar with a bolt on neck. I have the neck built and the heal is flat. no angle. I haven't routed out my neck pocket yet. I am going to use a tom bridge and was thinking about recessing it into the body so i don't have to have a neck angle. But I'm using a bigsby with the tom and i don't know if recessing the bridge is going to have a negative effect on the playabilty. but if i do go with a neck pocket angle do you route the depth so the fingerboard is touching the body or do you leave a little of the wood up (fender style)? any advice would be appreciated. Or if further info is needed let me know and i will post more.

[Dave Tays]

here are a few pics to show what I am talking about.
http://s1119.photobucket.com/albums/k62 ... G_0431.jpg
http://s1119.photobucket.com/albums/k62 ... 010323.jpg
http://s1119.photobucket.com/albums/k62 ... 010319.jpg

[Henrique Schneiter]

"but if i do go with a neck pocket angle do you route the depth so the fingerboard is touching the body or do you leave a little of the wood up (fender style)?"

Depends on the amount of neck angle you use and the bridge height. You may want to draw your project profile (full-size) on paper to determine that. That body looks great BTW.

[Rodger Knox]

Dave, it looks like you have enough thickness at the heel of the neck to do it either way. Generally, Fender style bridges are low and the strings are parallel to the top, so there's no neck angle. Gibson style bridges are taller and the strings need to be closer to the body at the neck than at the bridge, so there's a neck angle.

You can measure your bridge height, which will be the height of the strings above the body with no neck angle. Subtract that from the thickness of the neck heel + the height of the strings above the fingerboard and you've got the depth of your neck pocket. That will leave some of the neck below the fingerboard visable above the body at the neck pocket.

If you want the bottom of the fingerboard flush with the top of the body at the neck pocket, you'll need some neck angle. Think of the bridge as the point of rotation, and you can calculate the angle you need. Remember that bit of the neck showing above the body with no neck angle? That's how much it needs to rotate to make the fingerboard flush. The angle can be calculated by dividing that distance by the distance from the bridge to the end of the neck pocket and finding the inverse tangent. The depth depends on whether you put the angle on the bottom of the neck pocket or the back of the neck, it can be done either way.

I'll second drawing everything out at actual size to see how it will go together, particularly if you decide to go with an angle. The fingerboard will not be parallel to the top of the body, which might not be what you want.

[Dave Tays]

Thank you guys. I drew out a full size top view of the guitar but not a side view. Will deffently do this now. Thanks again.

[Pete Halliday]

I am in fact so stupid that for the past few days I've been reading the title of this thread and wondering who the heck Tom Bigsby is.

[Dave Tays]

Lol that would be my fault. Should be a comma there. Even though English is my first language it's never been my strong point.