MAKING
THE NECK -- 7
I do a great deal of the shaping of my necks on the
end of my belt sander. I find that it is a very quick and easy way
to remove a lot of excess wood and with a little practice, I can get certain
parts of the neck very close to final shape.
more
and more
and more.
I use this template to lay out the basic shape of the volute before I
carve it.
One area which is ideal for shaping on the belt sander
is the curve from the end of the fingerboard to the peghead. Although
it is not visible in this photo, I draw a line on the peghead which is
parallel to the end of the fingerboard and at the point where the sides
of the peghead will begin to curve into the fingerboard. Then I
just sand a curve to join these two points. It only takes a few
seconds.
Here I am working on the heel of the neck. This
is another ideal area for the sander. It is entirely end grain wood
and this is the hardest part of the neck to carve with a drawknife or
a spokeshave. I have done this enough to be able to get the
shape very close to final shape and to require only touch up with a fine
rasp (and hand sanding) to complete.
More work on the heel.
And more!!
This is a jig which I use with my spindle shaper. It is designed
to cut the neck (with fingerboard attached) to the exact thickness.
Getting the thickness (depth) of a neck exactly correct is critical and
difficult. This jig materially eases the job. I think the
photo is self-explanatory.
Here, after establishing the basic thickness of the
neck (see prior photo) I begin shaping the contour of the neck with a
spokeshave. From time to time I have thought of doing this with
some sort of automatic carving machine (a pantograph device with a router)
and have decided that in fact this is one of the parts of guitar building
that I enjoy doing by hand - it is very tactile. So, I continue
to do it by hand. I am not convinced that my way is better - it
almost certainly isn't, but I like it.
More carving.
This clamp works well for holding the neck while using the spokeshave or
sanding the neck.
This
shows the peghead end of the neck, and all of the shaping to this point is
done on the end of the sander. At this point I will start using a
file to fine tune the shape, followed by hand sanding to finish the shape
and prepare it for finishing.
I use this mini-orbital air powered sander for some of the shaping/sanding
on my necks. The nose is quite soft foam and conforms to the
complex shapes of the neck. For bare wood it works well to
smooth surfaces which have been finished with a rasp, and after the
finishing has begun it works well to smooth the initial coats of lacquer.
Here I am using it on the heel of a neck.
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by Charles A. Hoffman. All rights reserved.
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