Neck

The first job on the guitar was to glue together the wood splices. I used a PVA based wood glue and clamped the pieces together using two workbenches and a couple of small clamps. The process was very messy.  The glue acted as a very effective lubricant and care was needed to hold the splices in place together until they were clamped. The wood was left clamped for over 24 hours and then left for over a week to allow it to dry out after gluing. In the meantime I started work on the fingerboard.

The spliced block was planed flat and the block was marked out by using a plot from the CAD drawing. The truss rod slot was routed using the edge of the block as a guide.

It took me some time to decide what type of truss rod to use. I ruled out a traditional type of truss rod, because the curved slot and fillet piece required for this method looked difficult and I could get the same performance from other methods. So the choice was down to the double acting type and aluminium channel type. I eventually chose the double acting type because I had decided to place the adjustment at the body end of the neck and David Dyke stocked a double acting rod that was just the right length.

To save on effort later when machining the neck profile. I rough cut the neck with a jigsaw to within 5mm of the finished size.

I finished machined the profile to size using a hardboard template and router guide. The depth of the profiled block was then rough sawn using a jigsaw then finished to size using sure forms.

I used a rasp to curve of the back of the neck at each end, then I then used a spoke shave to remove the wood in between.

 

I checked the profile at intervals using templates. The profile was made asymmetrical with the neck slightly thicker on the bass side. This is claimed to give the bass a quicker feel.

 Finally, before the body wings were glued to the neck, I drilled the 14mm holes for the Gotoh machine heads. These are to be inclined towards the body.