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Neck Through Construction

Well obviously starting off with a complete template for a rough shape. Cut the rough shape out. Slowly carve the neck with a drawknife, making sure to keep equal width and depth with caliper. Once that's done routing out the body to be the proper depth in comparison to the neck. And the rest is fairly simple except for drilling the hole for the truss rod. That would be helpful information.
 
I wouldnt know where to start.  That's why I leave it to W guys to do that hard work.  I just have to bolt them together.  :glasses9: 

Sorry I cant offer any advice.  :icon_thumright:
 
I don't know if you would drill for the truss rod or route out a cavity before applying the fretboard.  If it's drilled, it could conceivably be a one-piece neck on a neck thru.  Don't know if I've ever seen that.  Also, before going through all the trouble to find out the neck profile you carved was too shallow for a neck that didn't have graphite reinforcement, find out how much wood has to be on neck with just a single trussrod.
 
Regardless if it is a one piece neck or not, a channel gets routed for the truss rod. If you are adding a fretboard, the channel gets routed prior to gluing the fretboard on. Most typically on a one piece neck, the channel gets routed from the rear of the neck - hence the "skunk stripe" to cover this routing. Relatively shorter holes may be drilled from either end of the neck (or both, dependant on truss rod design) to the routed channel for the adjustment mechanism.

If you stop and think out the setup and length of a drill bit necessary to drill the entire truss rod cavity from one end or the other, that setup would be pretty unwieldly.....
 
jackthehack said:
Regardless if it is a one piece neck or not, a channel gets routed for the truss rod. If you are adding a fretboard, the channel gets routed prior to gluing the fretboard on. Most typically on a one piece neck, the channel gets routed from the rear of the neck - hence the "skunk stripe" to cover this routing. Relatively shorter holes may be drilled from either end of the neck (or both, dependant on truss rod design) to the routed channel for the adjustment mechanism.

If you stop and think out the setup and length of a drill bit necessary to drill the entire truss rod cavity from one end or the other, that setup would be pretty unwieldly.....
Click to expand...

Yes it would be unwieldly. That's what I'm worried about. I guess I"d put a fretboard on it. But I"d really like to do one solid piece. So I guess I'm stuck. If I got it slightly off. That's it.
 
You might want to start by going to the library and getting a couple books on guitar building.  Warmoth carries 'Make your own electric guitar' by Melvin Hiscock and it includes information on neck through bodies.  You might also want to look on Amazon for other books.  That could yield the most amount of information for you.
 
Wyliee said:
You might want to start by going to the library and getting a couple books on guitar building.  Warmoth carries 'Make your own electric guitar' by Melvin Hiscock and it includes information on neck through bodies.  You might also want to look on Amazon for other books.  That could yield the most amount of information for you.
Click to expand...
I should probably do that
 
Neal Moser is the king of neck through construction, and a good friend.

He's got some classes that he is offering now through his website, www.mosercustomshop.com to individuals in such as a position of yours.
 
If this is your first build, you might want to start out from a base neck like this:

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bodies,_necks,_wood/Electric_guitar:_Necks/Through-body_Guitar_Neck.html
 
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