@russ it was up on a shelf of my woodworking room. The problem is that I had a flood a while back and soaked everything that was on the floor. I've been drying things out for a while. I thought that, since it didn't actually get wet, that the neck would have been fine. Apparently, whatever the reason, there was movement in the neck. I may need to invest in a humidity Guage.
@russ it was up on a shelf of my woodworking room. The problem is that I had a flood a while back and soaked everything that was on the floor
I remember now. I imagine as the room was drying out the humidity was changing dramatically.
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🗝️ "Life's what you make it"🗝️
@russ that's what I'm thinking now too. I think it affected more than I think and I'm just finding it out now. At least I didn't find this out after I put the fretboard and stuff on. It sucks but it could always be worse. Deep breath and think of the solutions. 🙂
ok. Straightened the neck out as best I could. With that, and where I decided to remove material, I needed to fix my headstock so that is in the same plane as the rest of the neck. Removed the material from the headstock and then needed to re-thickness the headstock to make it parallel again. That brought my thickness of my headstock from 15.5mm down to 13.5mm. In your opinion, do you think this is too thin to have enough strength? My thought is that I think it would be strong enough. I can just add some veneer to get me my thickness I wanted for the tuners I have.
Any thoughts would be appreciated. And a side note... I am not against remaking the neck. I just want to make every attempt to salvage this wood.
these are pictures of the neck with my winding sticks on them. The twist looks a lot worse because of the length of the winding sticks.
That brought my thickness of my headstock from 15.5mm down to 13.5mm. In your opinion, do you think this is too thin to have enough strength? My thought is that I think it would be strong enough. I can just add some veneer to get me my thickness I wanted for the tuners I have.
In my opinion, 13.5mm will still be strong enough. My only concern would have been the thickness to suit the tuners, but you've already thought of that and got your solution. Go for it.
I think it depends on the piece of wood, how strong it feels and if it’s quarter or flat sawn. Quarter will be more resistant to flexing than flat. You could make sure that the veneer is a tight butt fit against the nut to give extra resistance. The weak spot will be at the volute if you have one. Did you remove wood from the back of the neck or just the front of the headstock.
Some people call me a tool, others are less complimentary. Tools being useful things.
@rocknroller912 The neck blank is just a little bit off of full quarter sawn. I needed to take material off of both sides of the headstock but I have only removed material off of the fretboard side of the neck. I still haven't glued the fretboard on or any neck carving. It will have a volute.
I would say you will be ok but hard to give an opinion without handling the piece. Might leave the volute a bit bigger than you intended.
Some people call me a tool, others are less complimentary. Tools being useful things.
@rocknroller912 thanks for the input. My experience working with wood makes me believe it would be fine but I like hearing others think the same as me. I will make the volute bigger. I didnt think of that and I like that idea. Thanks. 🙂
well... it has been a while since I gave an update. I was able to get the twist out of the neck. I believe I still have enough meat on the headstock that there will be no problems. I will be adding a veneer on the headstock to beef it up a little but that is future me's problem. I added a piece of curly maple at the end of the fretboard as an accent so that I would stop the fretboard in the spot I wanted. I think it looks kinda neat. 🙂
Finished carving the neck and put it on the body to see how far off my cut away is. I decided to leave the neck the original thickness and repair the body. A lot of extra work but I think it worked out not too bad.
I still had some of the side material so I decided to try and laminate the side material on to increase the thickness. Also I was planning from the beginning to put a binding on the guitar so the ugliness on the edges will be covered. My hope is that my repair will be hidden as best as I can.
Next on to the binding. Decided to pick up a new tool so help with the binding channels. I love hand tools so I picked up a tool called a Gramil.
Worked fantastic. Flat side for outside curves, curved side for inside curves. I took a little bit to get them cut but when I was finished the channels we nice and even and actually looked like I knew what I was doing. :).
I made my own binding strips out of curly maple and got to play with my home made sander again. Man I love that thing. :). Then I decided I wanted to have black white black sandwiched between an abalone strip.
Then I started to install the binding to the guitar. Needed to thin the binding down to go around the arm bevel.
over all... not perfect but not too bad.
Now to work on the arm bevel. I carved and sanded it down with just touch the bwb strip. I made my own curly maple veneer and glued it on. This one looks much cleaner than the one I did for my wifes build. I like this process much better. And I know some ways to improve it again.
Then, the latest thing I've been working on is the end graft. I decided I wanted to go a little fancier with the end graft. Decided to have it wrap around the bottom of the guitar. I think it is kinda neat.
And that's me all caught up. I think I can go back on the neck now and start working toward that getting done. It is coming along slowly but I am liking how it is going. Even with all the hurdles along the way.
