Slight back bow in mahogany neck blank

[dwrockdoctor]

Hi all, I've just gotten started in building electric guitars. I have acquired a nice 20 year old honduran mahogany neck blank, rings like a bell when you tap it but it has a slight back bow that measures a bit under 1/16" inch from end to end of the 800mm length blank.

There is absolutely no twist in the wood, just the bow. What is the best way to proceed, can I just build as is?

 I plan on using a dual action rod which should help alleviate any problems once the neck is done but do I need the neck as flat as possible for routing the truss rod slot and glueing the fretboard on?

Cheers guys!

[verhoevenc]

What kind of neck/blank? Is it already thicknessed for a bolt-on? Or is it a big block that you could plane down a bit and still have what you need left?

Chris

[Bizman62]

@verhoevenc pretty much nailed the main issues.

To take it a bit further: Is the curve even or at one end?

1/16" is pretty much. The string pull will take care of some of it but routing the truss rod channel and gluing the fretboard can be a little challenging on a convex surface. However even if it's thicknessed for a bolt-on there's still enough material to plane it flat since the neck will be thinner than the ends. Also, 80 cm is longer than a guitar neck, cutting the extra 15 cm off will take care of some of the hump especially if it's more at one end.

[ADFinlayson]

If it was me and the blank was big enough, I’d just go down to the local timber yard and get them to run it over their  jointer.

Depending where the bow is, you could potentially lose a lot of it when you cut out your headstock angle and get the rest of the top fave level with a hand plane. Bottom face doesn’t matter too much as it’s carved away anyway. The action of routing along a template will get the sides square with the top face if there is any twist. It’s easier to plane the top flat after routing the taper as there will be a lot less wood to plane flat. But generally, the bigger the blank is, the more options you have. But you should do all you can to get blank flat first if you can.

whater you do, give it some time to settle down once you taken material away to make sure it doesn’t move again.