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My neck laminates - maple/walnut/maple/xxx/maple/walnut/maple. Center lam is not in this first pic but I ended up going with Paduak. Makes for a nice combination I think. Next time I will make the Walnut lams thinner to add more interest.

necklam1.jpg

Here they are all clamped together with every clamp I own:

neckclamped1.jpg

With the clamps removed. My wood was not wide enough to fit 2 full laminates on each piece so I overlapped them. Rather than scarf the neck, the angle pieces that came off the headstock (top right pic) I laminated together and scarf jointed on the rear where the overlap was.

neck_glued2.jpg

I have more pics which I'll post soon.

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no hes not this is the announcements and test area, and hes testing his pic server.

Don't be so literal, even thought he is testing the server, he is building the guitar neck or whatever! so it should have been here from the begining, work on the glitches later,

toddler68, that is a nice combination of woods, what kinda guitar are you building? Looks like you got some experience, have any pics of other projects? WE LOVE PICS HERE!!!!

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no hes not this is the announcements and test area, and hes testing his pic server.

Don't be so literal, even thought he is testing the server, he is building the guitar neck or whatever! so it should have been here from the begining, work on the glitches later,

toddler68, that is a nice combination of woods, what kinda guitar are you building? Looks like you got some experience, have any pics of other projects? WE LOVE PICS HERE!!!!

haha good point,

yeah toddler, that neck looks pretty good so far, what style body is it going on?

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I'm basing the design on a Schecter C1EX. It will be a 26.5 inch scale neck-thru and string thru. Body will be mahogany with a weird burl maple top. Body style is modified C1EX 'strat' with the horns trimmed.

I have no prior guitar-building experience but I really like woodworking. I also did a lot of research on this site before I started cutting any wood. This website rocks! B)

Here are some recent pics. I have the fretboard glued on now and I'm carving the back of the neck but I don't have pics yet. I'll try to get on the stick and post those soon!

Here's the big block of mahogany I bought off eBay. If I cut it right, I should be able to make 3 bodies out of it, provided I build them the same way as this one.

mahogany1.jpg

The "brain scan" burl maple top. It spoke to me as soon as I saw it. Disregard the LP outline. That was put on there by Buzzsaw. Also from eBay.

burl_top.jpg

My homemade fret saw miter box made from the stiles of a salvaged cabinet door front. Bought the dovetail saw a few years ago and never used it. It's kind of short but it's the right slot size and it got the job done. I will upgrade before the next project. Fretboard is rosewood. I know I'm probably doing this out of order but I haven't decided how to inlay the fret markers. Will decide soon.

fretsaw.jpg

Here's the fretboard being radiused. What a pain that was! :D

fbradius1.jpg

My body style on top. The bottom is an outline of a Schecter C1. What do you think?

bodystyle1lo.jpg

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that's gonna be a beaut! that paduk as the center lam really brings out the colors of the other woods. very nice looking neck. the body, well...i'm not sure how to ferel about it. it looks OK, i dont like the horns all that much, but it's your call. but, with that burl on top, it'll look killer, no matter what.

hope this project goes wlel, i look forward to seeing a finished, high quality product.

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Love the neck, burl and body design. I just have one suggestion on how to make the body (at least to me) more aesthetically pleasing:

The way your horns are cut in a kind of curved manner is nice, but when seeing these two curved "cut lines" my mind tries to join the two lines together - which isn't possible with a single simple (non-S-shaped) line following the curvature of the two "cut lines". This, to me, gives a slight feeling that the horns have been somewhat disjointed (the lower horn looks like it should be further up the neck, or the other way around).

Although your design is really cool, and most likeley very few would think of what I just mentioned, I would personally trim the horns so that both of the cut edges follow the same smooth curve. Here's an example:

tmpguit.jpg

Your design on top, where my "mental line" doesn't quite match up with the horns, and below an example where both horns have been cut by the same curve. The cut could probably have been made even better (perhaps with more curvature to the cut line) but I think you get the idea.

Just my 0.02 SEK...

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Love the neck, burl and body design. I just have one suggestion on how to make the body (at least to me) more aesthetically pleasing:

The way your horns are cut in a kind of curved manner is nice, but when seeing these two curved "cut lines" my mind tries to join the two lines together - which isn't possible with a single simple (non-S-shaped) line following the curvature of the two "cut lines". This, to me, gives a slight feeling that the horns have been somewhat disjointed (the lower horn looks like it should be further up the neck, or the other way around).

Although your design is really cool, and most likeley very few would think of what I just mentioned, I would personally trim the horns so that both of the cut edges follow the same smooth curve. Here's an example:

tmpguit.jpg

Your design on top, where my "mental line" doesn't quite match up with the horns, and below an example where both horns have been cut by the same curve. The cut could probably have been made even better (perhaps with more curvature to the cut line) but I think you get the idea.

Just my 0.02 SEK...

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, I haven't really tweaked the design to my satisfaction, yet. But, you describe the shapes like a designer which is what I am. I think my initial goal was to make a noticeable change in the shape of the horns short of running a perpendicular line across them. I put an arbitrary cut line on the top horn and mirrored it on the bottom one. I actually like the fact that the bottom horn doesn't appear to return but seems more stubby, like it wants to turn down.

This is great constructive criticism. Thanks for the drawings too. You have got me thinking. I will play with the cut lines some more and I suspect I'll end up somewhere between the top and bottom drawings. I'm just glad I finally have something on here for others to comment on. :D

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Did you cut all the neck laminates seperate? Or clamp em all together and cut em all at once?  Looks like you had great success getting em all to line up when gluing.  Whats the trick?

I cut them each separately and aligned the fretboard sides on the jointed edge of the wood. I just made sure they all lined up when I glued them up by placing them fretboard side down on a flat surface - my table saw.

necklam1.jpg

I did however, glue on each layer one at a time. Never again. I am going to build a glue press for the next project. Got the idea from daddyray. If I get time, I'll post the pics he gave me.

Did you cut all the neck laminates seperate? Or clamp em all together and cut em all at once? Looks like you had great success getting em all to line up when gluing. Whats the trick?

Oh yeah, and it helps if you have access to an edge sander too! If you screw up, just slap yer neck on that baby and it'll be flat as a pancake in about 10 seconds. I used the one at work to make my errors a little less noticeable. I also used it to joint my wood from the start. Jointers sometimes have trouble with figured wood, especially if the blades aren't sharp. The one I used produced tearout like crazy. So I just remedied it with a little trip on the edge sander.

Edited by litchfield
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Truss rod slot and carbon rod channels routed. I used the double action rod from LMI and 3/8 x 1/8 carbon rods from StewMac:

trussrod1.jpg

Truss rod slot taped over and ready for glue:

fretbd_tape.jpg

Glue applied:

fretbd_glue.jpg

Took the tape off and clamped:

fretbd_clamp.jpg

After the clamps came off and I tapered the neck:

fretboard.jpg

Initial shaping of neck. I used a spokeshave, Surform and rasps.

neckshape2.jpg

More shaping. Full neck:

neckshape3.jpg

Heel closeup:

heel.jpg

Volute closeup: Sorry about the focus.

volute.jpg

Been sanding my brains out for the past couple days. Next up is finalizing my body design and cutting out the wings and gluing them on.

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About the heel of the neck: Is that just and approximate position of the heel, and you'll do final shaping when you add the wings, or did you measure it out accurately enough that that's exactly where you need the heel to be?

Just approximate for right now. Once I get the wings on I'll have a better idea where to go from there. Great avatar by the way! :D

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that neck looks GREAT!  i love the paduk and the walnut you used.  the lightly flamed maple isn't bad either.  looks like this thing is gonna turn out killer!

what body shape you goin for?

Thanks! I'm so glad for the positive feedback. It took me long enough to make up my mind on the wood combo so it's gratifying to see that people like it. As for the body style, take a look at page 1 of this thread and you can see the design as well as some critiques.

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Nice looking neck, like isaid before great comination of woods, One question,. Why so muck space between the fret board and the neck,? Are you going to cap that beautiful neck thru... say your not...

I know you already showed that cap, (burl) but I would have just caped the wings and not the neck, It would have looked so sweet, like this I love that look.

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Nice looking neck, like  isaid before great comination of woods, One question,. Why so muck space between the fret board and the neck,? Are you going to cap that beautiful neck thru... say your not...

I know you already showed that cap, (burl) but I would have just caped the wings and not the neck, It would have looked so sweet, like this I love that look.

I'm afraid so. That's always been the plan anyway. I think it's too late to turn back now - I'd have 1/2 inch to make up for. Don't worry, I don't plan for this to be the only guitar I ever build. I have enough of the same woods to do probably 3 more necks.

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