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First neck is kindling.

Building a neck through cbg. Have to cut down the neck that goes inside the box. Is it best to leave a small space between the lid and neck? If so, how do you attach the neck. I've seen both styles. Neck glued to the lid and space for better acoustics. Cutting that grove is a nightmare if you want to glue to the lid. It must be so flat in order to hit the lid. I'm confused. This is my first cbg build.

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Permalink Reply by Wes "I'm Baaaaack" Yates on March 15, 2011 at 3:13pm

I leave a small space (1/16") space so the lid will vibrate. A lot of us do. Also don't glue - screw. Makes removal and changes easy. Take a look at my pics on my page.

-WY

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Permalink Reply by Roadkill a.k.a. John Maw on March 16, 2011 at 8:55am

I'm with Wes on making the neck detachable. On my first I decided to raise the neck by 6mm after it was finished. If it hadn't been screwed in it would have been harder to do. How you fix may depend on the way the box is made. If the box has a flat plain lid then I glue a piece inside the box behind the neck (almost agains but not touching the inside back of the box).. I then screw the neck to that. If it is the sort of box where the lid cuts through the sides I would fix the neck to the lid with brackets inside the box.

Either way I would leave a space so that the neck is only against the box at the very edges. Having said that I have seen and heard instruments that sound fantastic where the neck is glued all the way along the inside (sometimes even the outside) of the box. Now who was it that said "no rules"?

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Permalink Reply by Mark woleslagle on March 16, 2011 at 9:28am

Thanks for all the help. The "no rules" thing is my kind of building. I think for the first build, I'll try the glue about 1 1/2 inches on each end of the box, and try to leave a 1/16, gap between the neck and the top. I just found some sheet copper and may use some of that to form a tail piece. Thanks again for the help. I'm sure I'll have more questions in the future.

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Permalink Reply by Roadkill a.k.a. John Maw on March 17, 2011 at 10:34am

Hi Mark.

I used copper rivets to stop the strings digging into the wood at the tail and although they are OK (and I love the look) the strings manage to dig into them a bit. I'm not saying that the copper won't work and if it does I'm sure it will look wonderful, just make sure you take account of the fact that it is very much softer than brass. Sorry if I'm covering something that you already know.

All the best.

Mark woleslagle said:

Thanks for all the help. The "no rules" thing is my kind of building. I think for the first build, I'll try the glue about 1 1/2 inches on each end of the box, and try to leave a 1/16, gap between the neck and the top. I just found some sheet copper and may use some of that to form a tail piece. Thanks again for the help. I'm sure I'll have more questions in the future.

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Permalink Reply by Bluesheart on March 29, 2011 at 3:26pm

Yep.I would stay away from glue, at least for now .Too many unexpected "uh ohs "and once it's glued, well....... One thing I like to do is make the neck go into the box to the other end, but not out the other end. I mount a small wood block inside to fix the tail end of the neck to. One thing I really like about that is I can adjust the neck angle with a shim between the neck and this block. Check my pics too if you want to see what I'm taking about.