The 'extended Cutaway'

[djobson101]

Is anyone here into the 'Stephen's Extended Cutaway' heel design? I've had a jones to play with it, and by that I mean try to build it (and expecting probably to foul it up on the first try, because it looks tricky). I'm just looking for suggestions, how would those of you experienced in the field rate the difficulty of this joint? Ranging from easy for a person with basic woodworking skills, to difficult for a skilled builder?

[twangmeister]

I built an N4 type guitar a while back - luckily I had a reject N4 body and neck core I bought off ebay that I used to make templates from.

Check out my photobucket account, there are quite a few photos of the build there.

Cheers

Dave

http://s637.photobucket.com/albums/uu98/davidjfletcher/N4%20Test%20Build/?start=all

[WezV]

sam has done 1 too, and i think he might have done some CAD drawings

[SwedishLuthier]

I have had several N4 in for service and refinish (my webmaster owns 4 or 5 of those) and except from the hardware (the curved neck plate) they are not harder to make than a standard bolt on neck. you just need different templates and substantially lot more wood for the neck blank.

[sam_c]

Hi, yeah I own a few N4's. The radius of the extended cutaway is 4" I built a little pivoting circle cutting jig for my router to make some templates.

I have also drawn up a rough layout of an N4 in CAD. It is a simple neck joint really. The 'shelf' for the neck fillet to sit on is 1" wide I think, the depth depends on the model.

You do need a wide neck blank to make a 1pc neck for that joint, but I have seen people join a wider peice at that location before with no problems. And if you cut 2 blanks end to end it would be less wasteful.

here is a thread on some N4's I put together using old factory parts. they show the body routing and the jig I built quite well.

http://simnettguitars.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=1562.15

and here is my walnut/wenge N4, Im only posting a picture cos its my favourite guitar...ever

Edited August 26, 2011 by sam_c

[sam_c]

Here is a link to Stephen Davies' site, the neck joint appears on most of his guitars...and the patent has expired on this now afaik. I know washburn were trying to protect it not too long ago, not sure how successful they were. I think they wanted to ditch the term Stephens Extended Cutaway and go with 'shark-fin' neck joint or something like that.

http://www.seanet.com/~jsd/

[djobson101]

Wow, nice work you guys do! Above and beyond what I was hoping to find as far as getting a look at that design in it's components. Very much inspiring too, to invest in building some guitars.. I'm working on a body at a friend's shop and am really starting to take a liking to guitar building (looking at the 'in progress' threads is always great fun to see some really nice guittys coming to life). And thanks again for the links guys!