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How To Determine A Neck Angle


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I am officially done with this forum. You guys are the biggest bunch of condesending a-holes I've ever met. I've tried to be nice. Just wanting to understand a couple of things BEFORE I actually build a guitar. You know, before I buy parts. I can't draw anything out to scale without having the parts in front of me. But no, I'm just another idiot right?

I wonder... Is it just a certain type of personality that gravitates towards building guitars? Maybe it's the same disease that you find in guitar shops.

Anyway... I don't need the negativity. So, congradualations... I'm gone. No need to reply, I won't be reading it. You folks can go back to building yer 9 string cocobolo basses and I'll leave you alone.

By the way...

toscale49.jpg

You know, i run guitar making courses, and the HARDEST thing for the guys to understand is neck angles, and bridge positioning. The first ten or fifteen guys i helped, i spent an hour going through all the parameters, etc, and no one understood a thing. NOW, i give them a ruler, a pencil and teach them EXACTLY what i typed in the first post. Everyone gets it straight away.

If ive told you to get a ruler out, its because you will LEARN SOMETHING. You wont learn anything by being told the answer, because we dont know all the facts (fret top height verses fretboard, string action height, fretboard vs body, do you WANT a neck angle, bridge measurements, etc etc etc).

Only YOU can work this out, which is the SOLE reason this thread was created. In 12 months your the only one to "not get it". Maybe you should just buy a big brand guitar, because if you cant take five minutes out of your day to work out your own guitar design, when everything has been laid out for you, then i doubt you'll get far.

But what do i know...

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I am officially done with this forum. You guys are the biggest bunch of condesending a-holes I've ever met. I've tried to be nice. Just wanting to understand a couple of things BEFORE I actually build a guitar. You know, before I buy parts. I can't draw anything out to scale without having the parts in front of me. But no, I'm just another idiot right?

I wonder... Is it just a certain type of personality that gravitates towards building guitars? Maybe it's the same disease that you find in guitar shops.

Anyway... I don't need the negativity. So, congradualations... I'm gone. No need to reply, I won't be reading it. You folks can go back to building yer 9 string cocobolo basses and I'll leave you alone.

By the way...

toscale49.jpg

Honestly the request for you to keep digging in deeper on your own was not condesending in the slightest. It sounded like you were on the edge of a breakthrough in understanding. If you just stuck with it a bit longer understanding the whole concept would give you a tool that you would be able to use forever(on any design combination you choose to use). That solid understanding would also help you with other aspects of the build. Perry was trying not to just give you a tidbit of info(which would not give you the full picture-leaving you with gaps in your understanding and haunting you down the road). Instead asked you to push ahead and make that breakthrough.

As far as parts go. You can get specification details on most bridges, tuners etc... It is best to have the actual part in hand before you finalize, but manufacturers ifo is very close.

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Perry, your way of working out neck angle is easily simplest and most straight forward i have seen. I have tried to talk people through Melvyn Hiscocks method before and we normally get there in the end but it can be a little frustrating! I will describe it with your method from now on ( strangly i have never read this thread before)

Thank you for sharing it - its a shame people get so touchy about being asked to do something for themselves, isnt that what this game is all about.

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Perry, your way of working out neck angle is easily simplest and most straight forward i have seen. I have tried to talk people through Melvyn Hiscocks method before and we normally get there in the end but it can be a little frustrating! I will describe it with your method from now on ( strangly i have never read this thread before)

Thank you for sharing it - its a shame people get so touchy about being asked to do something for themselves, isnt that what this game is all about.

Wez, im guessing its because back in "our" day (and im assuming you are like me, you enjoy working out things... i know you aren't 'old' :D ), we didnt have the net, or playstations, or tamegotchi's, or any of this crap thats out now that take kids away from LEARNING how to build things, like mecanno, lego, sand pit, etc.

I know everyone at my school was always building stuff, making models, painting things, but these days its all games, computers, or tv. These kids grow up EXPECTING people to supply them with a ready made solution, where as we had to learn, through trial and error. My girlfriends two brothers are ten, and all they talk about are playstation, and trading games. When i was their age, i was building miniture boats out of tree bark and sap (for glue) and selling them to other kids, so i could get cash for more lego B)

And its only going to get worse. Trades are disappearing, and parents are throwing money at kids to shut them up. Shame really, because in the end, they get on here with massive dreams of building a guitar, and end up chucking a tantrum like we saw here the other day. All because they cant be bothered taking five minutes to learn something from someone who does this for a living, and has absolutely no need to come in here and give out free advice. :D

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yeah, you hit it spot on. I work in a school all day (you wouldnt think it with my spelling & grammer!) and the kids just arnt prepared to do a single thing for themselves. I set my VI formers (16-18 yrs old) some research to do today - all i got was 'what page of what book is it in?' and ' which bit do i copy?'. I expect people of that age to know what research means and that i aint gonna do it for them.

I did love my lego growing up, probably till i was too old really, i still have a star wars lego landspeeder on my shelf!. I also had a big thing for airfix kits (plastic toy planes and cars that you built yourself) and my dad used to build model planes with us from balsa wood, canvas and an elastic band.

I also make a point of only buying 'creative' presents for my neices and nephews, although thats mainly so i can play with them :D

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I run into this all the time. I work in 3d graphics now but I've never had any formal training in it...hell, I didn't even own a computer a few years ago. I started as a trainee cabinet maker years ago, moved into basic joinery, got bored & went into signwriting, got an office job designing ads for a newspaper & now create photo-realistic images & animations, all because I've worked bloody hard to get where I want to go.....& I've had to work with people who've been in education for 25yrs, have a long list of qualifications & not an ounce of common sense...why?...because they've never had to work things out for themselves.

I'm only just 30 but I feel like a right old man for moaning about the state of the youth today. :D You're completely right though, kids have access to vast amounts of information nowadays & the world is a much smaller place but all they seem to do is sit 3ft from the TV

BTW, my desk is full of Gundam model kits & vinyl toys... no need to stop when you reach the recommended age :D

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I hate that my girlfriends brothers arent into cars and stuff otherwise id be building all sorts of models and lego stuff for them, i miss doing that stuff :D

30 is old enough to notice the youth these days are useless. Im 32 B)

It is a different world kids grow up in today, but that is what our parents were saying before us(our perspective is what seems to change). I remember being told how lazy using a calculator was when I was in young. My dad gave me a not so working 69' Mach I mustang when I was 12. I got to fix it(and man did I spend a lot of hours on that). Eventually it went down to the ground and back up. It still sets in my garage today.

BTW; Perry you are a young pup :D . I am 37.

Peace,Rich

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 3 months later...

hey guys

for a neck-thru guitar,

if one were to incorporate a neck angle

would they:

1) glue the wings on slanted?

2) draw the angle out onto the glued neck laminates and run it trhough the band saw so it has an angle?

3) some other method that im leaving out

thanks for help

john

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30 is old enough to notice the youth these days are useless.

Heh, I'm only 17 and I can see it. It really is sad though. These parents need to step up to the plate. I was raised like my contemporaries in many ways, so I still have to constantly fight being really lazy (mentally and physically). You'd think it would be simple, but fighting the way you were raised is about like trying to push through a brick wall. Thank the Lord He is helping me fight it, cause I know I couldn't do it myself.

CMA

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Your diagram is freakin awsome, I've never really seen something so complicated laid out so simply. This is really an invaluable source of information for people learning how to build or even for people that know how to build a little, but don't know how to calculate everything for themselves. As many people mentioned there are so many sources that try to explain this topic and most of them are somewhat tough to figure out. I don't mind spending some time to learn something as useful as this, but many source are just overly complicated in their descriptions of neck angles. So, thank you for the time and effort you offered to clearly and consicely explain this subject for us. J

Edited by jmrentis
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  • 2 weeks later...
30 is old enough to notice the youth these days are useless.

Heh, I'm only 17 and I can see it. It really is sad though. These parents need to step up to the plate. I was raised like my contemporaries in many ways, so I still have to constantly fight being really lazy (mentally and physically). You'd think it would be simple, but fighting the way you were raised is about like trying to push through a brick wall. Thank the Lord He is helping me fight it, cause I know I couldn't do it myself.

CMA

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Hey enough about legos. I'm really new to building guitars and I was told the same thing. So, Like a good pupil a arrived at a neck angle for the guitar I am building with my son. I'm a woodworker ,and he is the guitarist. Would anyone recommend cutting the neck angle with a my table saw set at 4.5 degrees then using that angle to support my router as cut the neck pocket for a bolt on. You guys are great. I'm a true fan of all whom enjoy working with their hands. Prey it turns out....I never had a problems with my kitchen cabents having good intonation. :-)

Thanks,

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  • 3 weeks later...
This was an old project I was helping a friend with. There are a few pictures that may help. link

I had these pics posted from an old project also- Link

Mind you both of those necks were adjusted for tops. you don't need to adjust for that if you are not using a figured top.

Peace,Rich

I am curious....after viewing your pictures. Did you recess the neck behind the fretboard (that is between fretboard and bridge)? It then looks like you then angled the neck from the top. I really can't tell but it looks like a better option for me at this point.

Based on my drawing, my neck blank is not going to be thick enough using the method that has been discussed here. I am making an explorish neck through. My neck blank is 2" thick by 3" wide and 46" long. When I use the diagram used above, my measurements for the body portion of the explorer wings falls below the end of the blank. If what I'm seeing in the pictures you have posted is what I think; this may be a better way to go for me.

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