Comment

Comment by Rusty Summer on January 22, 2016 at 10:57am

since I use wood from a lumber store which is never perfectly straight, I try to use that to my advantage. If the wood bows slightly towards the back, the tension of the strings pulls the wood straight. Like the others, I double up through the body. 

Comment by Garry Faulks on January 21, 2016 at 10:41pm

Thanks sparky, that seems like a good tip, I might give it a go, where did you get your truss rod, how much do they cost?

Comment by sparky37 on January 21, 2016 at 3:34pm

I add a non adjustable truss rod in the neck under the fret board and epoxy it in. Works for me so far.

Comment by Garry Faulks on January 18, 2016 at 10:04am

John you are a true gent, your advice has been invaluable to me! I'm not too far away from you, I live in Chepstow, I'd like to try to get to one of your workshops, I've definitely got the bug! thank you once again!

Comment by ChickenboneJohn on January 18, 2016 at 7:16am

I notch the neckstick so that the top face of the neck is left a few mm above the top of the box, then add the fretboard, so the fretboard stands 7-9mm above the face of the box. It leaves a good 35mm running thru' the box, and you can take a 10mm notch for the pickup and you still have  a decent amount left, but I always try and keep the pickup notch as shallow as possible. Here's a few of mine - look at the thickness left even after notching for the pickup, and look at the heel transition, there's plenty of thickness left where the neckstick is notched out to fit inside the box, there's no weak spot for the neck to bend excessively.

I've had to deal with several guitars made by well-known North American builders that had problems with neck bending and excessively high action...often due to the part that passes thru' the body being way too thin.  Take a look at this example: 

You can see the neck itself is only about 15mm thick, plus the fretboard, and it has bent. This isn't the worst of it, there's absolutely no stiffening of the neck inside the box and the neck is notched for a pickup, which left only maybe 8mm at the thinnest point under the pickup, so of course the whole part of the neck inside the box is also really bent. Could it be any worse? Yes, the neck was glued to the underside of the top, and then the whole box was glued shut. There was no way of replacing or repairing the neck without destroying the box. The maple neck is scrap, because apart from the problem of it being too thin inside the box, it's obviously not man enough for the job, even with fretboard glued on, it is still bent like a longbow stave.

So don't worry about a few problems with your first guitar...the one in the picture cost nearly $400 plus shipping , taxes and duty, so it wasn't cheap. One of my customers had bought this 2ndhand, and got lumbered with an unplayable and expensive wallhanger, which had obviously been passed on by the original purchaser. He asked me to  act as an "expert witness" in the dispute and he got his money refunded in full. I've had quite a few US made guitars through my workshop that had to have the necks replaced, but this was probably the worst, as it couldn't be repaired. So learn from this...as well as making sure you don't leave any weak spots in the neck, my advice is don't glue the neck in and don't glue the box shut. Think about how the guitar can be repaired in future: electrical components will need to be repaired or replaced, necks might need to be removed and tinkered with.

Comment by Garry Faulks on January 18, 2016 at 4:43am

I'm just learning so all advice is good advice, thank you for your comments!

Comment by darryl kernaghan on January 18, 2016 at 4:35am

Nice guitar Garry,sorry to hear about the neck deflection,but as John says your neck stock should be good for 3 strings.Without knowlege of the timber used though ,hard to be sure,certainly any relief for a pick up needs to be compensated for,by your pictures i'd think with the pup so close to the edge of the box,you've reinforced it,at or just before the load point,easily fixed i feel,if you could remove your stiffener and replace it with a longer piece protruding foreward from the box,becoming both a heel and a bolster,you'd be fine as it will restrict. the bending moment considerably.I'm sorry if i'm sounding like a know all,but it's a nice looking piece,would like it to play well also

Comment by Garry Faulks on January 18, 2016 at 2:35am

Thanks John!
That will be the plan for the next one, tough lesson learnt! do you run the full thickness of the neck plus backstrap into the box without notching the neck?

Comment by ChickenboneJohn on January 18, 2016 at 2:28am

I usually make my necks out of 22 or 24mm thick stock, with an 18mmm thick "backstrap" glued onto the back of the neck running through the box, that way there's no risk of the neckstick "folding" where it's notched for the pickup.