Guitar Project Part 2: The Neck

With the specifications in place, it was time to start getting my hands dirty. I will try to keep this post brief, but I would be happy to share more of what I learned if anybody has specific questions.

My friend Will generously permitted me to salvage components from a very cool looking but irreparably damaged guitar of his. Besides a usable truss rod and some cool-looking knobs, it was great to have this around for reference and reverse-engineering purposes.


I decided to start with the neck, since it is the most dimensionally critical and easy to mess-up part of the guitar. I had chosen to make the neck out of maple because it is stronger than mahogany, allowing a thinner design without worrying about the truss rod breaking through the back.

To make the neck blank, I cut up a long plank of nice-looking maple (from a local lumber yard) and laminated it three wide. Laminating provides extra strength, since the grain runs in slightly different directions in each section. After laminating, I routed a channel for the truss rod.

Here you can see the neck blank with the truss rod loosely in place:


To add some additional thickness where the headstock would be, I glued two more pieces of maple to the sides, making it five wide. The next step was to cut out the profiles--vertical and horizontal--on a band saw. The band saw I was using needed quite a bit of setup and a new blade. I spent a good amount of time getting to know the saw before making the cut, because this step was critical and cutting through 3'' of hard maple is not a trivial matter.

Fortunately, everything came out great. Before attaching the fingerboard, I would need to drill the access hole for the truss rod and cement the rod with epoxy. "Hey!" I thought, "this is starting to look like a guitar!"


I had originally planned on making the guitar entirely from scratch, but I quickly realized that buying a pre-slotted fingerboard was the way to go. Accurately shaping and slotting my own would have required a significant investment in tools and time. Also, if I screwed up the fret spacing even a little, it would render the guitar unplayable. So I was happy to buy a pre-slotted rosewood fingerboard (pictured above, next to the neck) from Stewart-MacDonald.

Now for the fun part: shaping the neck. There really isn't much of a science to this; I shaved it down to a slightly asymmetrical profile that felt good in my hand. I started at the ends and then worked down the middle, checking the progress periodically with a straightedge.

For this task, my Microplane was my best friend. These are also great for grating cheese, but I wouldn't recommend using the same blade.


Next up: fretting. Although I can't really know how good my fretting job was until the guitar is finished, this step seemed easier than I had anticipated. I cut the frets and bent them by hand with pliers, and then gently hammered them into the fingerboard. Filing down the ends took a little while, but the process was ultimately nothing to fret about (lame pun intended).


If I were planning on making fret marker inlays, it would have been easier to do this before installing the frets. I may change my mind at some point and put inlays in, but I think the fingerboard looks rather nice naked. I'm not big on needless ornamentation. Side dots, however, would be necessary for playability. These were a breeze to make: simply drill holes in the fingerboard, glue in a plastic rod, and cut it flush.


At this point, the neck was pretty much finished. I was very pleased with my success, and with the amount that I was learning about guitars and woodworking. So much for keeping this post brief! Stay tuned for progress on the body.