Official Luthiers Forum!

I have a chunk of wood that I would like to try and build a neck-through Explorer style guitar with, but I am not finding a lot of info on the web about building them. There is some stuff, but I still have questions.
And I think maybe I am not using the search feature on these forums correctly either, but I am not coming up with what I am searching for.

Is there source available I can go to get all the info I need about building a neck-through that I have over-looked?

I love building neck thru axes. Ask away.

Okay Jim, thank you.

So before we get too far into this, first off, my chunk of wood is 42" long, 2" thick and 3" wide.
Is this sufficient wood length for an Explorer style guitar?
Also, I was thinking of using a scarf joint...

42" is plenty long. Explorers are awesome.

I didn't have to do scarf joints with a 2" thick neck blank. If the headstock is about 1/2" thick, that leaves you 1 1/2" for an angle, which is plenty to provide string tension . A scarf joint isn't hard to do either, especially if it's a one piece neck.

Draw out your headstock design on the neck blank with the location of the nut and fingerboard. That will give you an idea how it will work.

What type of wood(s) are you using? What is the grain orientation of your neck wood? Flatsawn or Quartersawn?

In additions to Jim's help, you might want to pick up Melvyn Hiscock's book on building electric guitars. He covers three different neck designs - bolt on, set and thru neck - and discusses geometry issues with each. His thru neck is a bass, but the principals are the same.

I'd draw a full size side view of the neck, top, and bridge.
If you go with a gibson tom bridge, you may need a neck angle of about 4 degrees because the tom bridge sits pretty high.
Dan

_________________
wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

I do have that book, also another one.
The wood is bubinga, maple, and some other pieces of something I forget what. Iv'e been looking at it for over 1-1/2 years now since I glued it up, afraid to cut into it.
The books offer some help, but this is only my 5th build and I wanna do it right.
I built a neck prior to this with a scarf and it turned out differently than I thought it would. And since 42" to me looks like it's cutting it close for my design, I need to make sure I cut the scarf right this time. It's been awhile since I been in the garage to look at it much, but now that the heat is gone I can spend more time on it.
There is a cad file I have for it, but it has strayed from that and I have become less of a cad guy with guitars because of it. It's much easier to just do it and learn from the mistake. Hopefully that was the last neck.
And that's why you guys are here

Nice woods. Yes I would draw it all out on the neck. Nut and bridge placement, fretboard. Even neck thickness up to the body. Get your body wings drawn out as well, even cut them out to see how it's going to fit together.
IMHO, I wouldn't try a scarf with a laminated neck. hard time getting it all to line up. I have cut the headstock angle, allowing 1/2" for the headstock and had plenty of string tension at the nut. Just because Gibson does such and such doesn't make it gospel. If your neck is 2" thick, you'll have a 1 1/2" drop. Like I did on my V.

Thank you all for your replies.
So basically this build is going to incorporate a few different things I have never done yet, and I was nervous about cutting into the wood I glued up.
So I spent a morning on the CAD program modeling different scarf joints and I think I now know what I needed to know about them. BTW- a scarf was always part of the plan.
Right now I am considering doing a fanned fret thing...
But back to the other things I need to know;

1 - When I glue the wings on, how should I align the 3 parts? I am assuming I wont clamp and glue them exactly perfect. I dont know much about, or own any block planes.
I have a bandsaw, 6" jointer, sander, router and table, a planer, and a performax 10-20 horizontal drum sander to get the job done.

Do I need to tool up more, or do I have enough to do the job?

There is a very good article in the summer 2014 issue of American Lutherie (number 118) by Harry Fleishman on setting up a table saw to make a multiscale (ie fan fretted) peghead scarf joint. He says that if you don't have a table saw you will need to plane to get a clean scarf.

With a normal scarf jointed headstock you cut the piece off at the correct angle, thin it to the final thickness, flip it over and glue it to the neck stock. Fleishman's method aligns the peghead angle to match the neck angle. With your laminated neck its going to be very difficult to keep the lines straight - I would draw some lines on a hunk of scrap and practice before cutting real wood.

And you owe it to yourself to add at least one good plane to your quiver.

Update-
Scarf joint - I figured out that I need to cut the 13 degree angle approx 8-1/2 inches down from the top of the headstock/neck-blank in order to give myself approx 6" of headstock area. Note- I know it's hard to line up the slices on a neck-thru, which is why I was gonna use the cut off staple/pin technique to keep things straight.

I guess my questions at this point mostly involve thicknessing, and when to perform these operations?

Right now I have a 2" thick neck blank that I intended to bring down to 1" before I started doing the scarf joint. But only up to say the 17th fret. So what is the best way to do that? Cut it first on the bandsaw I'm guessing.

Then comes the thickness of the body, that 2" figure. Should I thickness this first, then bring the body "wings" to the same thickness, and then glue?
Or should I glue first, then thickness?

And what is the preferred method to gluing the body wings on? Glue them on as blocks of wood (would be easier to clamp) and bandsaw afterwards, or cut the wing shape out first then glue.

Finally, I am concerned about not getting the wings completely level while gluing, and having to level and straighten out surfaces afterward.

Freeman- Thanks for the advice about getting a plane, but I'm not even sure how they work. It seems to me that the majority of them are too short to work properly. I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around these things. I definitely need an education about them because I know they're useful in the right hands.

These are just a few of my questions at the moment...

I use a bandsaw to cut the back of the neck. then use a variety of tools to shape the neck.

One is a Surform, from Home Depot, to hog off a lot of the wood. Another is a small drum sander on a drill, along with a small plane to help finish it off. Also have a Rigid Spindle sander which is awesome, but have made necks before I got it.

I would get the body and the body section of the neck as close as possible the same thickness. Take your time getting the wings and the neck as straight as possible where you're gonna glue them together.

Please pardon my ignorance, but I've wondered about this for a VERY long time: Do "neck through" instruments ever need neck re-sets? I'm serious. I know the body can't collapse as an acoustic guitar might. But, what happens if the neck bows severely? We are told repeatedly that truss rods only exist to adjust neck relief. So....what happens if one of these necks bends upward to a point that the truss rod can't handle?

I reckon if the body is two wings glued to the neck shaft, then the shaft better be one stiff sucker.
The Firebird shaft is pretty wide in the body area, so maybe that helps to prevent bending. i believe they are made from Mahogany and Walnut laminations.
Good point, Patrick!

_________________
wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

My first build was a neck-thru and I wondered if the neck would bow enough and thought the double-action truss-rod may be
how I had to get desired relief. Turned out fine. When strung up the neck bowed a little, (.010-.046 to A440) set the truss and it's been a very stable guitar. I've adjusted the rod once in over 4 yrs. ( It's always been inside not subject to radical temp./humidity changes)
If I was concerned about the neck relief for any reason, such as maybe a one piece neck rather than laminated, I'd install a couple of graphite rods on either sides of the rod and not look back. I've never seen a body bow from string tension so I don't get concerned about that section.

My second build was a neck-thru 5-str bass, laminated neck and I did install graphite rods- mostly because I wanted to. The owner has loved it with no issues and has commented on the excellent tuning stability.

I don't buy into all the talk about pro's and con's of neck-thru vs bolt-on or other methods...I do know that neck-thru is harder to build than a bolt-on...for me. That's the biggest difference to me unless it's going to be painted or not. I think a bolt-on looks better if the body is going to be painted. The transition from wood to paint on a neck-thru just doesn't appeal to me if the neck isn't going to be painted too.

My necks being laminated with maple and Purpleheart won't move even if you wanted them to. The truss rod is in there to say it has one, LOL.

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised how stable your neck will be compared to the mass marketed stuff out there.

My first few guitars were to learn on, to see if I could do it. They turned out surprisingly well. I bought cheap hardware and kept my costs down as I concentrated on the build itself.

So my advise is to just jump in and do it. You will be happy with it.

Well I jumped in, and I eFFed it up big time.
I am so angry with myself right now.
I cut the wrong scarf joint, (this is twice in a row now) and now I have more problems than I started with.
AND I spent an entire morning on my CAD program a few weeks back trying not to eFF it up; I thought I had it figured out.
Now I have to figure out how to salvage this semi-expensive piece of wood...pissed...

Don't feel too bad, kinda hard not too. Here is me salvaging the wings and truss rod on a nearly completed neck. I buggered it when I slipped with a router. Made a new neck.



My fix: tack the template down.

Hey Jim,

Thanks so much for the words of encouragement. I feel better now after viewing your pics (misery loves company right).
I guess my mistake wasn't all that bad, and it's been a couple weeks so I'm done crying about it.
I'm guessing by the pics that you maybe cryed a little harder than I did .
My mistake was just the wrong scarf joint. I am HOPING that I have learned the lesson I needed to.
And since I am getting fairly good at extracting good things from bad situations lately, I have a new router jig in mind to fix my mistakes on this guitar. It's going to be an adjustable angle jig to cut the headboard angle with a router.
I'll post pics of it when I fab it up. I'm willing to bet someone else has already thought of it already though.
If you know of any such jig, please comment on it or post links if you have any.
Mine is still in my mind of my construction phase...the plan is to weld up some steel on an adjustable pivot...

I once heard someone here say "turn your mistakes into 'features'", and I believe I am doing that with this project.
So to fix my mistake of cutting the scarf wrong, I have decided to re-glue it back to it's original position, then I will re-measure (on the correct side), and re-cut the scarf.
Now this guitar will have 2 scarf joints, and have an indestructible headstock, right?

There you go.

So after the re-glue and all the slop, I have a neck blank that measures approx 38 inches from the nut location to the end of the piece of wood. I think I lost about 4 inches in the screw-up.
Is this enough to work with for an explorer-esque style body?

Yes. Mine has 33.5" from the nut to the edge of the body. Plenty to spare. That's with a 25.5" scale so you're good to go. Git er dun.

Excellent, will do.
Thanks Jim.