Neck Angle Question

[jessejames]

When doing neck angle. Do you have to hand plane and/or sand the very top of the guitar from the bridge to the neck joint to match the angle of the neck heel? I saw a thread where someone was planing the top of their Les Paul style guitar for neck angle. But I always thought this was just accomplished through the heel of the neck, not the top of the body too.

[Narcissism]

I guess you could plane the body down as well if you were paranoid about the angle of the neck not matching the angle of the body... But at the same time, i think its a sort of wasted amount of effort.

Most will just work with the heal or the neck pocket.

[jessejames]

That is what I thought, and when I saw the pic of the guy planing his body I was like *** is he doing? I thought the bridge did a good enough job of determining neck angle.

[chops1983]

It just has to do with the top carve. A Les Paul's thickest section is below the bridge and then it tapers in thickness towards the neck.

To Answer your question, no you don't but it will depend on the design.

[Blackdog]

When doing neck angle. Do you have to hand plane and/or sand the very top of the guitar from the bridge to the neck joint to match the angle of the neck heel? I saw a thread where someone was planing the top of their Les Paul style guitar for neck angle. But I always thought this was just accomplished through the heel of the neck, not the top of the body too.

When carving a top in the Les Paul style there are actually 2 angles planed on the top, not just one:

(Note: not my drawing, this was borrowed from another forum from a guy specializing in LP replicas whose name now escapes me...)

This is done because with the LP mortise/tenon design the bottom of the fingerboard sits on the top.

I make the full neck insertion in the LPJr or PRS style, but I cut the two angles all the same because I like the neck binding line to be parallel/flush with the top of the guitar in that area.