Official Luthiers Forum!

https://youtu.be/YrlpEYE1728

Can’t wait to upgrade one day!

That's pretty slick. I think my next upgrade will be to let Andy Birko do them on the CNC

Full disclosure: I got hold of one of his necks a while ago and it was perfect - made the job so easy.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

That does look slick. When I first saw it I thought you would be limited to making a circular profile, but he says you can make any profile you want. My brain is hurting trying to figure out how that works.

Looks like it would be great for producing lots of necks quickly that are consistent. For me, carving and shaping the neck with a chisel and rasps is actually one of my favorite parts of building so I don't see one of those in my future. Maybe if it gets old at some point.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Once when I was at Jim Olson’s shop I noticed his shaper table and a lot of jigs and templates. He said he was so glad he didn’t have to use it anymore after going to CNC. Said it always scared the heck out him.

I’ve never used a shaper, does that process look dangerous to anyone that has?

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

No, it looks completely safe.

At each end of the neck there is a puck that is an extension of the neck shape. There is a roller against the pucks that determines how much of the neck gets fed into the bit, thus creating the neck shape.

In my new shop I’ll have room to upgrade...

My favorite that I've seen was Charles Fox's belt sander neck carver--worked pretty much the same way as the shaper jig, except it also had a radius on the platen that cut the heel at the same time as the neck. Pretty clever as long as you want a round neck profile. This one is Kent Chasson's jig, but same basic idea:





Dave

This is something I spend a little time thinking about. Some factory processes translate well to a “one at a time” builder like me. Others don’t. Even for the processes that give me some increase in efficiency (not all do), would it stop me from performing a step that I enjoy? If so, then why do it?

Neck carving shaper jigs don’t help me build one at a time any better than I can do it by hand, so I don’t use them. And I enjoy hand carving necks, so even if I could be more efficient with the shaper, I would rather not use one. YMMV, obviously.

I built one like Mike Doulin details on his site. I used it several times but ended up with the same conclusion James did- kind of nerve racking. I eventually disassembled it and went back to rasps and files and scrapers. I like the peaceful easy feeling method better.
http://www.doolinguitars.com/articles/neckdupe/

Many of us do the final shaping of the neck by hand, but a simple jig I use removes the bulk of the material with a router, and with the proper profile bit and neck design could bring the neck close to the sanding and finishing stage. The jig is a simple "L" shape that the neck is screwed onto and the router rides on. I also use it as a router table fence.
Large half round and ovolo profiles are what I use. Bits used for shaping the edge of solid surface sinks have useful profiles, and for those that have a favorite shape a custom bit could be made.
https://www.vexorcwt.com/custom-router-bits (and many others)

In the picture notice I ended the rout at the heel before it "pulled itself around the corner". Sometimes I am brave enough to rout it to the end and sometimes I stop short and finish by hand - I "chickened out" on this one.

I used to rough shape my necks with a table mounted router and a "round under" bit like this:

I mounted the neck blank fingerboard surface down onto a holding jig cut to the neck's profile. The router bit followed the jig. I later replaced this arrangement with a similar jig on a shaper. Worked great. I also tried one of those router replicator type pantographs. Slow and not a very good surface. Once I got set up with CNC, I started carving necks on it--hardly any finish work required and my fingers were nowhere near that big whirling cutter...

These days, I prefer to do my necks with a spokeshave and rasp though.

Dave

For me, the faster the job done the better. Neck carving is very demanding on my already very taxed hands, so to have the bulk of the neck perfectly shaped in just a few minutes is an asset. Consistency comes into play as well as I can deliver all clients the same neck.

Can’t wait to have this for myself!

That's very cool but it would take the fun out of it for me. Useful in a production shop hurrying up to fill orders though that's for sure and it would be very consistent.

As a partial shaping tool I made a RoboSander jig that sands the exact profile/taper, heel contour, and thickness into the neck blank. It really works well. (rough cut close on the band saw first) Neck keys in with the truss rod slot.
You can get the idea from the pictures I think. I have different templates for different neck shapes but the neck holder is interchangeable with all templates. It's a good idea to have the Lee Valley Robosander support bearing to ease any lateral stress. https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/shop/to ... em=68Z0220

IMG_1164 by Terence Kennedy, on Flickr

IMG_1163 by Terence Kennedy, on Flickr

IMG_4895 by Terence Kennedy, on Flickr

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

I'm a slow building hack. Cool stuff but I enjoy my low volume methods.