Lining Things Up

[al heeley]

I'm on build no. 3 at the moment, still learning so much about how to do things properly. On all guitars so far I've found that no matter how carefully I set out the centre line and pickup caities, bridge and ferrules, when I've fitted the neck into its pocket, the rest of the hardware may be a little off-line.

Here's what I do; attach a long piece of thread thru the tuner peg holes #1 and 6 and pull it tight down to the tail, to represent the top and bottom E strings. Then I can exatly line up the bridge, pickups and string-thru ferrules so the neck is as sweet as possible. I guess these errors occurr due to my lack of accuracy in routing out the neck pocket. Is it best to start with the neck, then line everything up with that or is there a different way to make sure everything is aligned as well as possible?

[Setch]

I usually route the neck pocket before anything else, and then mark the neck taper on the body, by placing a straightedge alongside the edges of the neck so I can see exaclty where it lies.

I carefully mark a line which is central to the neck, and base all my marking out from that. Thus far, that line has also been the centre seam of the body. A myka style neck jig is a huge aid i getting the neck set perfectly in line, but with care you should be able to nail it without one.

[unclej]

like setch i'll route the neck pocket first. but before that i'll draw a center line on the body blank and then lay the neck on top of it where it will lay when finished. i place a small block of wood the same thickness as the body under the neck close to the headstock so that the neck heel lays flat on the body. then i use a small lazer level placed at the bottom end of the body and make sure the lazer line runs down the middle of each fret dot.

once i know the neck is in perfect alignment with the center line i'll trace around the heel of the neck and that's where my pocket will go. after the neck pocket is routed and the neck in place in it i then check with the level again and if there's any slight variance i'll re-draw the center line. from there it's pretty simple to lay out the pup pockets (sounds like a breakfast food ) and the bridge.