So I have been making my necks 44mm wide at the nut but now I have a slight “issue” with that on my current build. This build btw is for a guitarist in Louisville, KY. He was the winner of the drawing I had on July 4th this year. The only catch so to speak for the winner was they had to pick one of my original designs. He picked my third design, which his copy will have some refinements to the design.
Back to the neck.
He had requested a Floyd tremolo which I have a couple of cheaper licensed versions in stock so I’m like sure. 😂 Yeah ok. Now I’ve never scratch built a tremolo equipped guitar but hey gotta learn sometime and there’s no time like the present to do it, so here I go. Lol
Like I said I’ve been making my necks 44mm at the nut and without checking (my idiot comes through now and again) the actual width of the locking nuts I have (42mm) I made the neck for this guys build 44mm. I am at a good place to remedy the situation, but I’m not exactly sure if what I’m thinking would be a good solution. I haven’t started carving yet but the fretboard is glued on. I am going to be putting binding on the neck so I have to trim 1mm off the sides of the fretboard. The bit I use to trim the edges has different sized bearings that give 1mm up to 3mm depth of cut. My binding is 1.5mm and I trim 1mm off the edges but by the time the neck is sanded and finished the extra 0.5mm just rounds over.
The solution I’ve come up with to get the fretboard and neck to the proper size involves using that same bit I mentioned above. I’m thinking I can use that bit with the 1mm depth bearing and start at the fretboard and trim off 1mm on each side then flip it and finish the heel section with a flush cut bottom bearing (Or is that actually a top bearing? I get confused on that. Sorry). That would get it to 42mm width with the correct taper I’m thinking. Btw, I did use my neck pattern to profile the neck with a router before glueing the fretboard on so the taper is consistent with a 44mm nut.
After that I still have to trim 1mm off the sides of the fretboard for the binding.
The other option I considered was to just trim 2mm off the sides of the fretboard but I think that would make it more difficult to hold the binding in place while I applied the acetone.
Suggestions??
Grab a gotoh nut, they're cheap but superb, front or rear mount and you can get a 43mm. Still keep most of the width that way. Might be an easier option because you could sand most of the extra away then. I use a long fret levelling beam to keep it all nice and straight.