maple neck blanks

[simon1138]

hello

i recently bought and recieved today five bits of maple, 4 that are 58 x 18 x 600 long and 1 that is 58 x 18 x 760 mm long. i paid £30 for this, is that a good deal? i havent looked around at local lumber yards, i live in the uk so b and q is the closest and they sell crap. #

this wood is the right width, i want to have  a 56 mm at thickest and 43mm at the nut because i have pre cut fretboards. i am thinking about the headstocks though, i want an angled headstock and so would have to do a scarf joint. i was thinking that i may be able to get four necks out of these five pieces. a lot of cutting and gluing ahead. but also, the heel? the wood is not thick enough (18mm) for the heel. would that matter?

thanks

simon

[Bizman62]

You're right, they're a bit on the skinny side. There's not too much play in case you have to plane them straight if they're warped. And the fretboard has to be left thick enough, about 6 mm. Depending on the width and direction of the growth rings you may also want to add a couple of carbon fibre rods on the sides of the truss rod, otherwise you may end up with too flexible necks. Slowly grown hard maple can be strong enough by itself.

At 60 cm they're also a bit short but your plan of sacrificing one bit for scarf joints and heels it might be doable. Gluing several pieces for the heel is common practice and if you feel uncertain about the joint you can always plug in a couple of dowels for extra support.

The price... Maderas Barber in Spain sells Sycamore blanks 700x85x25 mm for £7.71 so your £30 sounds like the price by the weight is similar. 

[curtisa]

18mm thickness isn't an issue. Just make the neck pocket a little shallower to compensate. A standard (if there is such a thing) neck blank thickness is 19mm.

Your bigger issue will be the width of the blanks. 58mm won't be wide enough to create the headstocks unless you glue extra pieces either side to make up the required width. The other alternative is to buy some separate pieces wide enough for making headstocks with and just use your blanks solely for the neck portion below the scarf joint.