Neck from hell, and what to do about it

[John Sonksen]

okay so I've slowly been chipping away at my second electric, too many distractions including moving my shop, moving my house, busy at work etc. This guitar is a lot like my first a double cut les paul, with a laminated neck. I originally glued up the neck last year and while routing the truss rod slot I had my router bit slip in the collett, leaving a little ski ramp half way down that almost went through the back side.

I cut the head stock off and then cut out the center section to redo the laminations, then glued the head stock back on. So a couple of things about that. A) I didn't line the head stock up very well with the main part of the neck. It was close enough that I could square things back up so it won't be a problem structurally but if you sight down it you can see the laminations deviate slightly. Being that I plan on using a face piece on the head stock I consider this cosmetic and intend to do an asymmetrical shape so I'm not sure it bothers me too much. B) I didn't reglue the head stock up so it still had the groove from the original rout in the area where the truss rod nut will be. I didn't even think about this until today when I was running a new slot on my table saw and, yep, you guessed it, I ended up with a wider groove in that section which will not hold the truss rod tight.

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The depth is fine, it's just the width. So a couple questions, is it imperative that the truss rod is perfectly centered in the neck and would it be better to glue a piece back in the slot to completely fill the entire slot or can I just shim it as needed? Really I guess I can do either, but one will be a little easier I think so I thought I'd check first.

[Mark Swanson]

I would just shim it as needed. with that type of rod it isn't as critical to have it all that snug. It may rattle though.

[Barry Daniels]

Shim it with mahogany veneer strips; as many as it takes to get a tight fit and place them on both sides of the rod to center. Glue them up and fit them with the rod in place (wrap rod in wax paper) to get a clamping action. It should be good as new.

[John Sonksen]

Okay, thanks for the responses guys. I couldn't think of a reason shims wouldn't work, but as I said, second guitar, lol. Would you think CA glue would be the thing to use? I'm planning to block in the heel end first and then give myself an extra inch or two past the brass nut for my shims. Hopefully that will minimize any rattle I might get otherwise.

[Steve Benford]

John, I always use a tiny bit of window caulking at both ends of my TR slot. It keeps the TR from vibrating but is flexible when adjusting the rod itself. You always want to have a little bit of tension on the rod anyway which helps avoid rattle.

You could use CA since your shims are not a structural piece.

STEVE

[Barry Daniels]

Don't use CA because it may go places you don't want it to go. Like into the truss rod nut. Use Titebond on the wood shims.