Rooster Reaves
Male
Freeport, IL
United States
Profile Information:
- How did you learn about Cigar Box Nation?
- surfing the web.
- How many instruments have you built so far?
- 10
- What do you find most interesting about cigar box guitars? (If you do not enter something meaningful here (at least one sentence long), your membership may be rejected as a spam/bot fake account).
- Love the simple way of making something from a box and a piece of wood to make music! The more primitive the better. Really glad I found this site.
Paul Craig
Depending on what material your neck is made of, is to how high your string action is at the last frets. Whatever wood you use there'll be some bowing of the neck that will raise the strings.
I always use Red Oak for necks with a non-adjustable trussrod on my necks. That's usually stable enough for 4 to 6 strings. On my bridges, I usually mount a bolt on a block of wood that can be trimmed or exchanged for a bigger one if needed. Things don't always turn out the way they're planned, so having a way out of the mess is good rather than starting all over again.
Jun 27, 2016
Paul Craig
Poplar can be great for bodies in the tone dept. I made a neck out of Poplar once for a 6 string(3 sets of 2 strings) 28" scale Dulcitar that started to bow on me. Had to cut down to 4 strings to stop the bowing. The neck was a 3/4" thick Poplar with 2 - 1/4" Red Oak laminations and a steel rod for a trussrod.
There's a guy on the TDPRI Guitar Forum that regularly makes necks out of Poplar with success, but He uses adjustable trussrods.
Also used Pine on a 25" 4 string neck with non adjustable trussrod and laminated fretboad. Won't do that again, even the headstock bowed on it.
Red Oak, Maple or Mahogany is the way to go for necks. IMO
Deltagroove.com makes great necks for CBG's in complete or you finish modes. Check them out some time.
Jun 27, 2016
Paul Craig
I guess you could look at it this way: If it's easy to cut and shape - it's easy to warp and bow. Hahaha
Jun 28, 2016