kiwigeo wrote: ↑Wed May 24, 2023 9:23 am
Steve, I know Ive asked you about this a while back but can you remind me about the procedure for setting up the neck/body join.
You make up the body with the neck block with mortise already cut and the neck with tenon cut and bolts set up. Do you do a rough neck rake setting at this stage and then fine tune once guitar body is boxed up?
Thanks Martin
Yep, thats it.
Its essentially the same methods as a traditional spanish style construction on a solera with a spanish heel, except with a bolt on mortice and tenon.
1) Make up neck, cut tenon, make up block and fit mortice to neck. Drill, tap, bolt them up (theres a bit of trickery getting the block setup with the right angle and the right space for the soundboard, but it takes 5minutes) .
2) Then glue the morticed block to the soundboard, with the neck bolted to it, this way you can ensure correct alignment - I do this on a solera as you would with a spanish heel neck. Once glued you remove the neck. Glue tail block at the same time.
At this stage you have a completed soundboard with a neck and tail block attached.
3) Glue the kerfing/linnings to the bent sides on the soundboard edge only and then plane them square.
4) Drop in the sides 1 at a time glueing them to the SB and both blocks.
The rest of the box is then built like this upside down eg side braces, even profiling the sides is done while they are glued to the top.
Sometimes we do end up having to make minor neck angle adjustments once the box is closed up, but in most cases 10mins with a chisel even for a beginner student, and its sorted out.
There's several reasons i prefer doing it this way, mainly:
1) Its so simple to get the neck angles and skew right.
2) There's very little router use in the build (mortice and tenon are all hand cut with ease) - infact the only time a router is used is for binding channels and saddle slots. When working with students you want to limit router use for obvious reasons.
3) Most students can go from having separate completed parts on the bench (neck/neck block/tail block/sides/top/back) to box closed with perfect neck angle in 2 classes (8hrs).
Done over 300 builds (mostly by students) in my workshop this way and yet to have any major dramas around neck angle.
Side note: its a bolt on only, however i glue the fretboard to the soundboard with fish glue, so it pops off easily with a little heat.
) from my 15 day intensive guitar building course has put up a video of his build log.
