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Just wondering how fussy to be about matching grain...

I always thought that laminated necks were a good way to turn flatsawn lumber into quartersawn necks. And I think they look really nice, too. Every scratchbuilt guitar of mine (5) has a laminated neck. About grain matching, I don't see a problem so long as the colors look similar. The two outer panels of the three or more don't touch anyway. And I'm way too cheap to chop apart a neck and stick in a lamination between the halves just to have matching sides. That defeats the economic argument. I think laminated necks are a classy upgrade that is structurally better than a neck without laminations. I'd pay extra for a laminated neck.

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Peter Havriluk

I'm just trying to max gains, lol...

Old image, and the bass has since been reshaped and refinished. There’s a few challenges on this one as a neck through, but mostly it was doubling up the body section - you can see the seam at the “neck and body join”.

Both sides are just cut down the middle; I think matching is important.

Note: I realize this is not even close to an AG neck, but still a lam.

I think I need to add some pics to be more specific about what I'm asking...not tomorrow but maybe the day after...

I like to take a board twice as long as my neck blank needs to be, preferably with a 45 degree or so end grain. I cut it in half, and flip the boards to get a semi-bookmatch on the grain. Here's a square neck Hawaiian I'm working on--all Ovangkol. The 45 degree end grain will expose medullary rays all the way around a regular round neck guitar.

Dave

For laminated necks I do what Dave does. I usually use maple veneer in the center. I like the way the grain looks at the heel.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I thought the idea was to oppose grain sort of like how plywood is made so that if one lam wants to bend one way it will be opposed by the other. That's the way I've done them anyway. I have not done a 3-piece neck in many years though.

If I do a laminated neck, I do as Steve and Dave do - to me that is "opposing grain match". It can make flat sawn more like quarter sawn.
Another type of "three piece" laminated neck is where I use a glued on heel block and peghead. Having wood with similar grain and color is ideal, and with a good grain match it can be hard to detect. I have seen and done heel blocks that were noticeably different. They don't look as nice but structurally work fine.
I third type of neck you might consider "three piece" is one with "ears" glued on the peghead. A rather minor deviation from a one piece neck, but one which a purest might notice.
To me, one piece necks can be very wasteful of wood, but compared to the ways wood and other resources are wasted it's a small thing. Still, I prefer to do a block heel and a joined peghead, and save a little wood for the next guy.

I think that can be the one disadvantage of the way I do laminated necks--just like on bookmatched tops and backs, any runout in the grain will be backwards from one another on the two pieces, which can make using a spokeshave or a paring chisel to carve the neck somewhat challenging to do without some grain tearout on one side of the neck. Of course, using the same piece of wood as a one piece neck, it would either behave or misbehave over the full width of the neck instead of just one half depending on which direction the runout is going. My jointer has a Shelix cutterhead that leaves a nice fingerboard surface regardless of any minor runout.

If I have wood that wants to tear out using my preferred cutting tools, I just go to Plan B and either shape it with a rasp or just do the whole thing on my CNC machine...

Dave