Neck Angle On A Neck Thru?

[necroreaper]

Hey all,

In the process of planning my next build, and it's gonna be a neck thru. I'm just wondering how you go about cutting the neck angle? Obviously in a bolt-on or set neck the angle is cut in to the neck pocket, but I can't get my head around how to do it on a neck thru.

Sorry if it's a dumb question

Thanks

[Jaden]

im pretty sure there is a tutorial on this somewhere on this site..

have you trawled the tut section?

[Bionic Dave]

There is a tutorial on the site. but there is 3 ways to do it. cut the neck angle into the fingerboard area with your jointer this method is ok, but you do get run out, The other is what I use, you cut the neck angle into the body section of the neck with your jointer.

the other is to use your bandsaw and do it as a scarf joint. This is going to be the longest joint in the world though.

Tutorial: http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=30210

[necroreaper]

I searched and searched and somehow completely missed that tutorial!! I don't have a jointer though and I don't know how I could possibly cut a scarf joint that long with a bandsaw.

Anyone got any ideas using a router or even planes?

Cheers for the input guys.

[Metalhead28]

Anyone got any ideas using a router or even planes?

Yes, use a router or a plane.

I prefer to cut the angle on the body area. If you have to remove a lot of material, bandsaw it close, then clean it up with a plane or attach a straight edge and use a flush trimming router bit.

[Tim37]

see if you can barrow the tools you need or modifie the design for the tools you have

either use a diffent bridge or recesse the one ya got.

[ihocky2]

I'm a big fan of recessed bridges instead of neck angle. I've done angled necks, and it's not hard but the recessing is faster and I like the way they look.

[necroreaper]

I think I might go with no neck angle then, I don't even know what kind of bridge I'm going for yet so I'll put some thought in to what would work best. It's only my second build and the first was a set neck which I cocked the neck angle up completely (and had to bin the project), so maybe I should try something a bit easier.

Cheers guys!

[Prostheta]

Sorry if I haven't read the thread fully, but here's my take. I cut the angle on a bandsaw (roughly) and clamp (one at each end, one in the centre in case of deflection) two service pieces of jointed and rabbeted pine either side of the blank. I then use a router sledding over these two pieces of pine with a big cutter to true up the face. The reason I don't use my jointer and use this method instead is that my most recent builds have a small riser for the fingerboard with the facing top of the guitar sitting across the neck blank.

Hope this helps in some manner....I'm sleepy and can't read :-(

[J_48_Johnson]

When I made my neck-thru, I got my angle with a spokeshave, scrapers, and sand paper.

I drilled holes in the body "wings" and in the neck and glued everything up using dowels as the alignment pins. Once it was dried I used the hand tools to cut away the remaining wood.

As you can see I built the angle in before I glued it up. I used one dowel at the back at the very end of the guitar body, and used a dowel at the top up by the fretboard. Then I cut away the unwanted wood. The results were very good.

[necroreaper]

When I made my neck-thru, I got my angle with a spokeshave, scrapers, and sand paper.

I drilled holes in the body "wings" and in the neck and glued everything up using dowels as the alignment pins. Once it was dried I used the hand tools to cut away the remaining wood.

As you can see I built the angle in before I glued it up. I used one dowel at the back at the very end of the guitar body, and used a dowel at the top up by the fretboard. Then I cut away the unwanted wood. The results were very good.

I like this idea!! May have to give this a go. Just need to decide what bridge i'm gonna use now

Cheers.

[verhoevenc]

The way that I did it on my first neck-thru is this (although I would not do it this way again):

First, I simply glued the first wing onto the neck through blank at the desired angle. I then made a jig that raised up the wing sections by 3/4" thus giving space for the part of the neck blank sticking out the bottom. These raises keep the wings co-planar, but also allows the blank to stay at it's angle. I then clamped on the second wing using this jig so everything would be in line.

I then used a router running on rails taped to the wings, set to cut down to the top, to route off the areas of the neck that were now sticking up over the top from the angling process.

The way that I would do it now is this (sorry if someone already outlined this): I would calculate my needed neck angle. Draw this on the side of the neck and bandsaw off the angle from the bottom of the blank. I'd then plane/joint that smooth. Then I'd set my bandsaw fence to the thickness of my body, and then send the blank through using my "angled" bottom as the fence reference. This will then give me my angle for the body section on both the top and bottom of the blank. I can then just glue on the wings as per usual.

This said, I saw above someone mentioned the "joint angle into fretboard plane, although it would create runout." I agree, it will create runout and I therefore highly recommend you avoid this method. You're pretty much gunna end up putting your runout in the body section, or the neck section of the neck-thru blank... I would ALWAYS choose to put that runout in the body section!

Chris