Do you radius the back of the neck?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Wes "I'm Baaaaack" Yates on July 31, 2010 at 7:30pm

You don't have to. Not at all. I do. I use a...

Shhhhh. It's a secret.

[grin]

-WY

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Permalink Reply by Mark Lillo on July 31, 2010 at 7:31pm

I find they are more comfortable to play if the neck is shaped on the back. My first two I used a router to radius the neck, but the rest I have shaped to a larger radius than I could get with my router.

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Permalink Reply by Bluesheart on July 31, 2010 at 7:50pm

Sure does make it more comfortable to play. I'm thinking of trying a spokeshave, cause the router sure does make a huge mess/lot of noise/wants fingers! But it's up to you, as long as you are not getting splinters from it, square my be hip!

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Permalink Reply by uncle Lou on July 31, 2010 at 8:26pm

rounded spoke shaves a wonderful thing ,thats what I always use on necks

Bluesheart said:

Sure does make it more comfortable to play. I'm thinking of trying a spokeshave, cause the router sure does make a huge mess/lot of noise/wants fingers! But it's up to you, as long as you are not getting splinters from it, square my be hip!

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Permalink Reply by Wes "I'm Baaaaack" Yates on July 31, 2010 at 8:43pm

Awwwww. You told him. You have away my secret.

-WY

uncle Lou said:

rounded spoke shaves a wonderful thing ,thats what I always use on necks

Bluesheart said:

Sure does make it more comfortable to play. I'm thinking of trying a spokeshave, cause the router sure does make a huge mess/lot of noise/wants fingers! But it's up to you, as long as you are not getting splinters from it, square my be hip!

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Permalink Reply by Mark Werner on July 31, 2010 at 9:08pm

I always carve mine to some degree or other; been playing guitar so long my fingers know how they want the neck to feel....
I use pretty much the same tools I do for making bows... A Stanley Shurform for rough removal, then a standard "Nicholson" 4-sided rasp to take it down to almost-finished.
Then it's sandpaper.
A router would speed things up.....

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Permalink Reply by L.J. on July 31, 2010 at 9:20pm

my early builds were square before i got a router. they tend to wear into the insides of my knuckles. I still play them just not as much or as long. If it dont bother you to play em square then do it your way .

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Permalink Reply by uncle Lou on July 31, 2010 at 9:26pm

I`m lucky i got 2 antique dbl ones rounded one on the left flat one on the right side

Wes Yates said:

Awwwww. You told him. You have away my secret.

-WY

uncle Lou said:

rounded spoke shaves a wonderful thing ,thats what I always use on necks

Bluesheart said:

Sure does make it more comfortable to play. I'm thinking of trying a spokeshave, cause the router sure does make a huge mess/lot of noise/wants fingers! But it's up to you, as long as you are not getting splinters from it, square my be hip!

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Permalink Reply by Jkevn on July 31, 2010 at 9:39pm

I looked back at the pic of your first neck Iggy, I think that the norm is somewhere between the care and craft you used on that one, and leaving it square. I like to at least round the edges with a rasp and then sand it so its finger friendly. Knocking a 45 down the sides and sanding only takes a bit of time and compliments the thought you put into the rest of the box...

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Permalink Reply by Mister Scott on September 15, 2010 at 7:15pm

I just started work on my first neck shaped with a spokeshave. How often do you guys find you need to sharpen the blade?

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Permalink Reply by wes carl on September 15, 2010 at 7:26pm

all i do is use a sander an round off the edges no complaints yet

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Permalink Reply by Don Goguen on September 15, 2010 at 8:26pm

My secret is I like to use a rotary rasp cutter on a die grinder (air in the shop is mighty handy). This gives me the advantage of hand shaping that I don't get with a router. It is about as fast as the router for cutting but I can vary the radius and also my taper at the headstock and body joint. Sure it makes a bit of a mess but so doesn't everything else in the shop.

I follow up with an aggressive flat and round file then 80 grit on the random orbital sander. From there it is finish sand with progressively finer grit till I get to hand sanding with 600 grit emery wet dry paper. Even with the final hand sanding it goes very quickly.

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