Building/fitting Necks To Acoustic Bass

[docbass]

OK, I've rehabed/refurbished a number of basses, starting off slowly and building my skills. I have two hollow body/acoustic bodies set up for set necks and two pretty raw necks without fret boards. What's the best book or two around for an amateur builder needing to upgrade his skills in terms of body and neck work on acoustics? Is the Benedetto book a good one for me here?

Here's one of my projects........

body...

neck.........

[verhoevenc]

The Bennedetto book rocks. However, most archtop boxes are set up for a dovetail style glued in neck... while your neck looks like it's for an electric style set neck... I doubt those two will work together.

Chris

[docbass]

The Bennedetto book rocks. However, most archtop boxes are set up for a dovetail style glued in neck... while your neck looks like it's for an electric style set neck... I doubt those two will work together.

Chris

I'm sure they will work together once I trim/cut the heel of the neck to fit appropriately and that's my dilemma. I've not done that before, tough I've worked on set necks before, but have never created one from scratch. That's my interest at this point.

[erikbojerik]

Benedetto is a good place to start, most definitely.

I'm not sure if this is feasible with the bodies you have, but I would seriously consider think about trying a Taylor-style bolt-on (search the OLF), it is basically just a butt joint with a fretboard extension that is routed slightly into the top of the neck block. You can have either screws from inside the body threading into inserts in the neck heel, or hangar bolts sticking out of the heel that you screw nuts down onto from inside the body. There are a few folks who've pulled it off with archtops, basically using a long tool that they insert from the endpin hole or endpin jack hole. Which you may or may not have....and may or may not want to drill.

With the neck you have, you'll need to add onto (stack) the heel so that you make it thicker, then craft whatever kind of surface/tenon/dovetail you need to mate up with the body.

Also your neck blocks may not be set up for a butt joint...a lot depends on what's going on there. But after you read Benedetto, and after you've gone to school on the Taylor neck joint, give it a thought. Taylor-style joint is the way I'll be going on my first archtop build.

[docbass]

Thanks so much Erik, that's the kind of feedback I was hoping for. I am able to craft whatever joint I might need on the neck, the real challenge is getting the neck angle correct with an unfitted neck. I'll definitely look into the Taylor neck idea, although I just remembered that I have a Martin acoustic neck, of the type you described. That might make more sense on this project since it's got a male dovetail routed into it already. I'll have access to the heel from inside the body since there will be a pickup rout at the base of the neck.

I've done some challenging things before and this is just the next step. Here's one I did last year. Missing headstock on a 60's Thunderbird that I recreated from scratch............