My Main Concern In First Project!

[MasterMinds]

I am making a body (going to use my existing neck for now).

The body will be easy to make via my design; all I have to do is cut the outer shape, and route a single rectangular hole, and drill two holes for two switches and two holes for the non-trem bridge screws.

My main concern is routing the area for the neck to join the body.

How do I determine the measurements (the ideal ones, not the actual ones) for my existing neck. If I measure my existing hole are there ideal measurements to compare it to?

I'm concerned because I know a millimeter is too big an error.

What would you recommend?!?

[Marzocchi705]

Just make a neck jig as per myka. Do a search for neck jig and you should be able to find it and instructions on how to use it.

[Mickguard]

This might help.

The really elegant part of this jig is the idea of drawing a ruler onto the rails--that way you can be certain things are centered correctly. In the version I'm planning to build, I'm going to glue down real rulers (since I don't trust myself to be 100 percent accurate drawing the lines).

Also Guitarfrenzy posted a photo of his setup using a lot of clamps and a laser sight --I've used this before, and it works great too, especially if you're not routing for an angled neck. The first jig is probably better for an angle.

Others just use a neck pocket template, but there's no guarantee it'll fit your neck exactly (unless you make it using the neck itself)