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Well I'm carving up the neck on my second electric finally and I find this part really enjoyable. I've been using a combination of sur-form's, rasps and files and am starting to prefer the rasps over the sur-forms which can cause some pretty serious blowout especially on figured woods. My big gripe with this process though is I don't have a good way to hold onto the neck while I'm carving it, so I am basically holding it with one hand and tooling with the other. It's a slow process and I know I need to improve it, so I figured I'd get some ideas from the more experienced builders here. I've looked around for a vise that I can use for this in the under $200 range but am mostly coming up with hobby type vises, which all seem light duty. These are in the vein of what I'm thinking would work though with the adjustable pitch and angle from the ball joint typical of these designs. So what kind of solutions do people have for this, be it some specific commercially available device or some homemade rig? I'm strictly looking for help for hand carving set ups, as I'm still a ways out on my cad/cam certificate and cnc isn't an option for me right now.

Thanks for your time

i drill the 4 plate mounting holes very early on in the process, then bolt the (very) rough neck on to a sturdy piece of maple that is about the same thickness as a strat body, but only as wide as 3.5" or so...and this piece i clamp in the vice, and rotate it/abuse as needed, and this way the neck itself doesn't have to suffer much from clamping scars. probably a weird way, but it works ok for me. i also do the same for fretting.
...in the very initial stages of neck formation, it helps to save a burly unshaped "node" in the center, that you can squeeze the crap out of in a vice, while carving on either side, left and right...then later down the road, carve off said "clamp node"
the above advice is for ridiculously hard/tough rock maple that i have dealt with; mahogany doesn't require such intense clamping pressures

I clamp the heel of the neck in my Workmate, and leave most of the neck hanging out in free space. Works fine, even with frets installed.




I have also seen people lay the heel of the guitar face down on the edge of the bench, and clamping that end, and using a bench on the headstock end to clamp that end.
Lots of ways to do it.
I can't imagine trying to hold one end and carve the other. You've gotta clamp that sucker down somehow.
I would recommend a good book on building. Most of these will explain things like this in detail. If you are doing something like this, there's no telling what else you are doing to make life way more difficult for yourself than you need to. A bit of instruction, even from a book, goes a long way.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Here is what I do. I stole the idea from someone but can't remember who. These aren't the best pics, but one end clamps the heel and the other clamps the headstock on a pivot point. The entire rig clamps to the workbench. A complete neck can be carved without any adjustments.

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Doug

Don't let fear or common sense stop you from trying to build something

I think I like that setup Doug, I'm going to give that a try.

I carved my first neck at work a couple years ago, and would pull it out on breaks. Because of that I never put much thought into clamping it down as I'd only have fifteen minutes at a time to work and would need my bench back to normal when I was done. It sounds like a crazy way to do it, but I got it done and it wasn't so bad. Now I have my own space and am still in the process of designing my main workbench, and feel like its time to think this part through a little more. I appreciate the responses so far, keep them coming!

I made a couple of these. Just a 2x8 with some 2x4 feet and holes and notches for clamps.

What species are you carving John?
I have yet to carve real Mahogany, but I imagine it would be a joy to carve.
I've made necks out of Maple, Walnut, and Mesquite. Man, these woods are hard as a rock.
I clamp the heel and hold the head up against my chest.
I'll definitely make one of the neck holders similar to Doug and Steven's.
I bought a spoke shave, but have not given it a try yet - I need a sharpening system first.

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my necks are quarter sawn maple mostly with center lams of walnut and curly maple, so it presents a bit of a challenge going from the hard outer layers to the inner layers which are both soft and prone to tearing out. For that reason and because of how I glue up my necks in terms of grain direction, I need to use a right handed stroke on either side of the center line to avoid going against the grain (kind of hard to visualize, would be easy to show with a picture but I don't have time at the moment). Anyways, it's a reason why I like being able to move it around a bit to adjust my angle of attack. I'm thinking of a block like Doug and Steven's setup and either just move the whole thing, clamping it into position as I need or maybe setting it up on a pedestal of some sort, like rigging something up with my deadman offbear support.

I can't remember where I saw this setup originally, but it was a 2x10 on a pedestal. I just haven't found a suitable stand to mount it to.

Here is a better pic. Built out of 2" dimensional lumber. The pivoting headstock mount is critical for flush mounting of necks with various headstock angles. I think I built this baby in all of 10 minutes. Nothing fancy about it.

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Doug

Don't let fear or common sense stop you from trying to build something

Wow...really some high tech ways to get a neck shaped...
me, well, me shove one end up against the work bench, the other in to me gut and go at it with a draw knife, and low angel block, then to the end of the belt sander to clean it up...takes about 20 min to do a neck...not worth building a jig for to collect dust, and take up space hang around in me shop doing nothing till the next neck be needed.

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Don't buy flimsy tools and don't pay list price. Find a good old vise for cheap. If your workbench is not rock solid, build a fast cheap ugly bench with enough triangulated legs to be immobile (or nail it right into the structure of your basement or garage). Having the vise so it can't wiggle is more important than the groovy pivot.
Old car/ hot rod swap meets are a source of old tools as are estate sales. Classified ads for yard sales often mention tools. There are lots of solid old vises out there that get sold cheap.
Even without a vise you can get a lot done with a good table and C-clamps or those clamps with a vise-grip handle. Plenty cheap at Harbor Freight.

I "carve" my necks pretty much by sanding.
I've tried various tools: spokeshave, shurform, Dremel, hatchet, etc.
I'm learning to use cutting tools (per Cumpiano's philosophy) and I just ordered some diamond stones and a tool to hold chisels.
I think I should start with real Mahogany and then work my way up to harder woods once I have some skill.
Any advice for a beginner carver?

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I just use a roundover bit to carve my necks, to get the shape in there and to get a lot of the meat off the neck. Just but this in my hand held router and go over both sides. No special jig needed.


Then I take a table top sander to get the middle area down and rounded, then followed by a saw rasp and then an orbital sander.

What used to take me 3 hours now takes me 45 minutes.

I do pretty much what Doug and Steven do. I've got cradles made of scrap wood for the different necks I've made. My cradles all have a small "pedestal" built in. This is just a piece of 2 x 4 about seven or eight inches long, which I clamp in my front vise. I can clamp parallel to the front edge of the bench, or perpendicular, and I can easily swap ends in either orientation. If I had a nice swivel vise I'd probably use it, but this works for me. If you make a bench top cradle, make sure it's tall enough to give you plenty of comfortable room to operate rasps, files, spoke shaves, etc on either side. I know that sounds obvious and I don't mean it in condescending way. It would be a real pain if you forget to do it. Another obvious but important reminder: If you make a cradle for a narrower neck (such as a mandolin), make your cradle only as wide as the nut end of the fingerboard. That way, you can quickly work on both sides of the neck without constantly shifting it from side to side and re-clamping. The edge of a piece of standard 2x dimension lumber is a little too wide for convenience on a mando cradle. (Yes, I'm afraid I didn't stop to consider that fact until about half way through building my mando cradle. The joke's on me!)

i start with a roundover bit on my table... use a grinder with an 80 grit flap disc to get the basic shape & remove most of the stock....then i use a 60 grit orbital sander to round it over & work up to 400 grit to finish...

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jwells over at the Tele forum has his heel clamped in a vise, as mentioned above. The neck hangs over into space with a stick supporting the peghead. I think he uses a screw through one of the tuner holes into the stick; the floor end of the stick is attached to a 2 by "foot" on the floor.

I like stevenwheeler's rig a lot!