How To Be Structurally Sound?

[verhoevenc]

I was just wondering a couple points about semi-hollowbody construction. In order to be structurally sound, how thick should the walls and the back be on a semi-hollowbody made of lacewood? Also, how deep should the neck's wood be set into the body? How much wood needs to be between the neck pocket and the hollow cavities?

(Woods used: body= lacewood, top= sitka spruce, neck=not decided yet... maybe mahogany).

Thanks you guys,

Chris

[Mattia]

In part it's up to you, but what I'd call safe margins:

Back thickness, about 5-6mm (hair under 1/4"). The 'walls' around the edges, I'd leave at about 12-15mm (1/2"-5/8" ish, if you bend sides, like on an acoustic, .085 is fine, but with all the end-grain involved in routing a solid piece, no way). Neck set, well, do what you want to, really, keeping in mind how much 'meat' will be there after you route out the neck pickup. 1"-1.5" should be about fine, though.

wood around the neck, I'd say at least an inch around, just to be on the safe side. Width of the neck pickup plus a little should be plenty, though. You don't need any wood between neck pocket and hollow cavities if you don't want it, although I'd extend the neck pocket 'support area' about to the end of the pickup at the very least.

Basically, draw it out, and use a bit of common sense. Wood is pretty darn strong stuff, especially post-laminating everything together.