Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi,

I'm Eric and this is my first post on this forum.

I've built about 10 guitars, all with flat tops and non-angled neck pockets. Now I want to venture out into angled neck designs such as the Les Paul Junior and some custom designs. Everything I'm working on now is a flat top. Is there a standard angle for neck pockets when using a tune-o-matic or wrap around bridge. Also are there any good jigs for routing the angled neck pocket.

You guys have a cool Forum here and I've learned a lot just browsing through.

Thanks
Eric

The standard angle for a Les Paul or 335 neck is 3-1/2 to 4 degrees, but its also a function of the carve of the top and assumes no overstand other than the thickness of the fretboard. I start by setting that angle into the neck heel and the top





However, after I have the body carved I'll check the neck angle and reset it slightly if necessary - what I am looking for is the fret plane to just hit the top of a ToM bridge at its lowest adjustment - here I've got the bridge sitting on some little wood blocks that emulate the studs. (This is actually a different guitar than the first pictures and has slightly less top carve so the angle was a little bit less)



I actually use the same procedure for setting the neck angle and overstand on a "flat top" electric like a tele - I want the fret plane to hit the top of the saddles at their very lowest position. I know that when I add in 4 or 5 thou of relief, 10 or 15 of nut clearance (first fret) that I will be comfortably within the adjustment range of most bridges to get the action I like.

If you are working off of a good set of plans you can sketch the fret plane relative to the top and see that you want about 5/8 over the top with an ABR style bridge. (Always work with your bridge - they do vary)

Once you have angled the top it is a simple matter to screw or clamp a flat template on it and route the pocket. Its often good to route the neck pocket before the pickups - you can screw the template in there. This is a home made template - I also use it to fit the neck heel extension

By the way, most Les Paul Juniors have flat tops, true Lesters have carved tops and the angled necks. The one in my third picture has a moderately carved top and less angle, but the geometry is still the same. Here is a side view of an ABR ToM and stop tail piece - as you know you can wrap the strings over the tail piece or straight to the holes depending on the break angle. The ToM is slightly high, I know I can lower it in the future if the geometry changes.

Having thought about this for a few minutes, I think a better way to approach this is to consider the geometry of every guitar. It doesn't matter what the shape or angle or anything - basically to be playable you want the strings so far above the fretboard. So, draw a line that represents the tops of the frets. Draw another line that is your desired height above the first fret (mine would be 0.015 to 0.018) and another that is your desired height above the 12th fret (again, mine would be 0.060 to 0.080). I like very little relief so for this lets assume the f/b is flat. Now extend those two lines to your scale length position - thats where the top of the saddles will be. The string line will probably be about 1/8 inch above the fret plane line.

Measure the overall height of your bridge and saddles at their lowest adjustment (you can often get that off manufacturer's spec sheets). I like to make that measurement from the fret plane - that will be the height of the top at the bridge. I like to also make sure that the bridge has enough adjustment to easily hit the string line, maybe a hair more.

OK, you have established the point of the top under the bridge. Now draw a line parallel to the fret plane the thickness of your fretboard - lets say 1/4 inch. If we assume that the bridge has the same radius as the the fretboard (usually 12 inches for a ToM) then you are safe drawing all these lines as tho they were the outside (low E) side of the fretboard.

Now look at your neck at where the body will be. Do you want it to stand additionally proud of the body (as Fender does), do you want some sort of wedge shaped filler (as many archtops do) or do you want the bottom of the f/b to sit on the top (thats what Gibson does with the LP). Draw another line and connect it to the one under the bridge with whatever kind of wonderful curves you like (flat is a perfectly wonderful curve). It might be at an angle, it might not. Fill in the side view of the body, measure the angle and bingo - start carving.

The point is, depending on how high the top is under the bridge and how much YOU want the neck to stand proud of the body and how much YOU decide to arch the top, there will be one angle that works. Its zero on a tele with something like 3/8 of overstand (however many tele's have something in the neck pocket creating a little angle), its about 3-1/2 - 4 degrees on a Lester. Your guitar may be something entirely different.

btw - Melvyn Hiscock has a pretty good discussion about geometry in his book, highly recommended

Koa,

Thank you fir taking the time to respond, very helpful information.
Eric

Minor part of the OLF - depending on our post count we are given a wood reference. As a newbee you are given walnut, a perfectly fine tone wood but maybe not as desirable as some of the others, with good old Brazilian the top of the heap. Anyway, my name actually is Freeman, I guess a thousands posts qualifies me as koa.

I hope my wordy discourse was helpful - are you building from plans?

Freeman

Again, thanks for your time.

I like walnut, I have strat and tele variations, swamp ash with book matched flamed Claro Walnut tops.

The guitars that have me perplexed are the home brew ones, both alder one spalted maple one walnut top. On these I think I have the angle right but I made the pockets too shallow so the strings would be too high for the bridges. These were routed by jury rigging the stew mac strat pocket template.

With Fender style geometry the neck pocket is usually 5/8 deep and the bottom is parallel to the top. The neck stands proud of the body by 1/8 plus the thickness of the f/b, which is 1/4 (measured at the outside edges, of course the neck is thicker in the middle depending on its radius). That works with most bridges - here I'm checking it on one of my barnwood tele's



That was the brilliance of Leo's designs - simple neck geometry that could be mass produced. As long as your pocket is routed to Fender specs, any neck meeting their specs will fit and work.

Of course it doesn't always work, but there is a simple fix - throw a shim. You can either put in a flat shim to raise the neck (if it needs to be deeper you can route or chisel the pocket) or you and shim it at an angle. As I said before, the angle doesn't matter as long as the geometry works. In fact I'll bet that many old Tele's have some sort of shim in their pocket - a match book cover, guitar pick, piece of wood or plastic or whatever. This happens to be a Warmoth "jagstang" body and one of their necks - the owner wanted a Kahler bridge installed. Unfortunately the stock angle was slightly wrong but one of those cool StewMac shims made it work perfectly