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I'm was trying to carve out the neck pocket for my guitar body Friday and my wood shop teacher told me to use a chisel so the router wouldn't mess up and i messed up with the chisel and went outside the tracing of the guitar. Any advice or anybody i could send the body to so they could carve out the stuff? if needed i could pay but preferably i would want advice for the learning experience..

that would be hard

woa sry, wasnt thinking.. but still if anyone wants to take a crack at it themselves just say so, it would be appreciated

Use a template and a flush trim bit and rout out the neck pocket....next, assuming you are going to paint the guitar a solid color, fill the area you screwed up with wood putty epoxy or CA glue and go from there.

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John Thiessen
http://www.iszacguitars.com

Matt,

if you want to build guitar, then don't ask people to fix your mistakes. MISTAKES ARE LEARNING. If you don't want to learn ( and to make mistakes), just drop it and go take a factory guitar.

You know, my first electric build, I finished about a year ago... I've made a BIG, but... BIG mistake. I routed the neck pocket ON THE WRONG SIDE, yep... ON THE BACK. Ok, I was pissed out, desperate and humiliated for 1 day... but the day after, I came back to work on the problem. I glued an ebony scrap there.. so now I have a nice ebony screw plate, as hard as a metal one. And it's quite beautiful.

You can fix it.

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Francis Richer, Montréal
Les Guitares F&M Guitars

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Francis Richer, Montréal
Les Guitares F&M Guitars

Wow! Ti-Roux, never seen anything like that before! Is that in response to Chris suggesting a 7-string neck to cover up an overcarved neck pocket? Whatever it is, it's nice looking. I'd like to hear more about it.

Chris, while we're sharing our "woodworkers often make crap guitar builders" stories, here's one of my own. My uncle is a hell of a woodworker and a fine craftsman. He's been designing and building fantastic stuff since before I was even an idea. When I was 17, I told him I wanted to build a guitar, and I was really excited to maybe work with him on it. He looked at me like I had been speaking in Swahili and said, "why would you want to do that? Why don't you build a box instead?"

Matt, today I was careless and trying to cut corners and I really butchered the peghead on the neck I'm working on. I was trying to even it out to glue the ears on, and just went Charles Manson on it. But I'll go back and fix it tomorrow, as much as I don't want to, because it'll make me better at it for next time. There's no way to cut corners here. We all learn that sooner or later.

Francis, what tuning is that in?
Is that a baritone harp guitar or just an invention?
I like it!

I have no idea of what it is lol! I just find it on google!

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Francis Richer, Montréal
Les Guitares F&M Guitars

What I would do is cut a slice of whatever wood you are using about twice as thick as I needed making sure the grain is proper . . . . then I would glue it to the bad side (after I got it's surface flat as I could) and wait till it dried . . . . trim it up a bit with the chisel, remark and start over .

This time having better control of the chisel . . . . maybe you should practice a bit on some scrap......

A sharp chisel is way better than a dull one . . . and taking small bites holding it in your hands under firm control is better than using a hammer like your knocking out a birds mouth on a rafter or something...

If you mess the new one up . . . reglue the dang thing again. ..... and again ...till you do it right.......EXACTLY right....not a f it that's good enough right.

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http://jimwaltersblog.wordpress.com/

i would do what jim said, except i would not go back at it with the chisel. just use the router, make a good template for you neck pocket practice using the router and your template on a couple pieces of scrap 2x4 until you get the hang of it. if you dont have a great router or the best bits then you may have to make multiple passes at different depths, but it will be way easier.

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~shad peters

http://www.flickr.com/photos/petersinstruments/
http://petersinstruments.blogspot.com/
http://petersinstruments.com/

#1.

Router is definitly a great tool. It could be really dangerous, for both you and your work piece, mais if you learn to handle it the right way, the router is really gonna help you and make you save awes much time. A good router with good bits, really sharp, combined with a right utilisation of great templates and jigs, will give you the precision that you need. And it makes a clean job.

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Francis Richer, Montréal
Les Guitares F&M Guitars

dude. slice the body down both sides of the neck taper (follw the neck taper down on both sides right through the body). taking off more in the centre, glue some strips in, making a laminated body. now, position your neck with your centreline and clamp it on to the body. about a 1/4" further into the body than you want the pocket. make two mdf straight edges that fit the outside curves of your axe and extend up the sides of the neck to about the 9th fret, clamp them on real tight. remove the neck clamp and jam the neck up to the end of the pocket. butt another straight edge up to your heel and clamp. remove the neck and ROUTER THAT SUCKER using a template guided bit. because you forced the neck that 1/4" into your template, when you remove the neck the mdf will return to its original position. This means that the neck will be slightly larger than the hole. place some 240 grit on a flat surface and firmly make a few passes on either side of the neck heel until you have a PERFECT fitting heel joint.

that thing above is a tap guitar.