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Happy New Year!

I got the neck finished up this weekend, and have been enjoying playing it for the last couple of hours. In the last installment of this project, I will cover the finishing basics.

For the neck’s finish, I use a nitrocellulose lacquer. There are quite a few different formulas, and having tried most of them, I like Behlen’s Qualalacq the best. It flows out nicely, dries really hard, and will amber and check over time just like the lacquers used in the 50s and 60s. Behlen’s also makes a stringed instrument lacquer, but this has a lot of plasticizer in it, so it never truly hardens like the Qualalacq does. On maple necks, I skip using sand and sealer (I use two coats on bodies), and go straight to lacquer. I put on two coats of clear, then one coat of amber/brown shaded lacquer. To make the lacquer shader, I use the “vintage amber” and “medium brown.” “Vintage Amber” alone makes the neck too amber for the fender look (although I like the look on its own aesthetic merit). For one 8-ounce cup of lacquer, I add 8 drops of amber, and 4 drops of brown. Here is a shot on the neck with clear lacquer:

Here is a shot after the amber coat:

Once the amber coat goes on, I do 6 more coats of lacquer to get some build. I wait 1 1/2hrs between coats. It is worth noting that all the coats until this point have been thinned 1-1 with Behlen’s lacquer thinner. After the build coats, I let the neck dry overnight. The next day, I wipe sand the neck with 400-grit sandpaper. Although it feels like I have put on a bunch of lacquer at this point, it is important to remember that the lacquer shrinks a lot when it dries. In reality, the lacquer is still very thin, and sanding through is a real danger. At this point, I am not trying to level the finish, but just smooth it out a bit.

While I have been finishing the neck, I have also been adding the final clear coats to the guitar’s body. Here is a quick shot of it:

After the 400-grit level sanding, I do 5 more coats of 1-1 lacquer-thinner. At this point, I also start to prep the logo decals. These too will get some lacquer before they go onto the guitar. One coat will be ambered to replicate the natural aging that decals undergo.

I do want to take a moment to address the issue of copyright and trademark infringement involved with using fender decals when clearly, this is not a “fender” neck. I typically use my own decals for my own work (why put someone else’s name on my work). Technically, the headstock is also a trademarked design of Fender guitars. My aim with this project was to create a replica (although not beaten to heck) of Clapton’s famous black stratocaster. In the spirit of this project, I wanted to use the correct decal for the guitar. I have no intention of, nor ever would sell a neck with a trademarked design or copyrighted logo (by the way, I do not sell any guitars or guitar parts; this is just my hobby, but thanks to those readers who asked, I take it as the highest compliment). This guitar is for my own personal enjoyment. 

That aside, I then cut out the logos (I always do two, since invariably, I will find a way to tear one. I did in this case, so the precaution was warranted.) I used my custom shop strat as a guide for the shape.

Before I put the decal on, I do the final sanding of the neck. I start with 800-grit “P-scale” paper, and go all the way up to 2000-grit. I use a pink eraser as a sanding block to keep level, even pressure, and prevent sand throughs. Even at this point, the lacquer is still very thin, so be vigilant for sanding through. I keep the sandpaper lubricated with water and a drop of dish soap. Be careful with the water around the frets and any holes (the tuner holes mostly, but the neck screw holes too if you do those before this point). The water can get into the wood and cause it to expand, in turn, causing the finish to crack.

The frets are a pain, but I just go slowly by hand:

Once the whole neck has been sanded to 2000-grit, I add the decal. About an hour before I apply the decal, I shoot it with some lacquer retarder. This softens it up a little, and prevents it from cracking when the backing paper comes off. I dip the decal into warm water for 30 seconds, then apply it to the headstock.

I let everything get aquatinted overnight, then the next day I shoot a flash coat of lacquer. This lacquer is thinned 4-1 thinner to lacquer. All it is doing is melting any sanding scratches, and putting a nice sheen on everything.

After 10 days, I buff the finish starting with a medium compound, followed by fine compound, swirl remover, then guitar polish. On the neck, I do all the buffing by hand.

After the neck has been buffed out, I start with the tuners. Stewmac sells a nifty tuner bushing reamer that makes the bushing installation easier. These are great if you get the right size for your bushing, but I have found that bushing size can be inconsistent between different brands of kluson-style 11/32″ tuners.

A quick and dirty way to line up the tuners for screw drilling is just to use a straightedge, then drill.

After I get the tuners on, I turn to the frets. I don’t plan on going into detail on the fret dressing, that is an entire series in itself. One helpful trick is to use a black sharpie to mark the tops of the frets. This lets you see where you have exposed fresh flat during the leveling process. If the board was leveled well before the frets were installed, and the frets were properly seated, there shouldn’t be too much leveling needed, then it’s on to the nut.

As you can see, the neck has been attached to the body at this point.

I mark the nut slots, and rough them out. I then use the strings and a feeler gauge to get the nut height and slot depth to my liking.

The last step is to install the string tee for the B and E strings. I like the circular tees.

All that is left to do now is finish assembling and wiring the guitar, and enjoy playing it. I am going to make a few changes to the guitar to get it a little closer to “Blackie” (unreliced) (for starters I am going to make a new pickguard. This was a headache I had hoped to avoid, but the white one I bought pre-made is blindingly white! I’ve got some nicer off white plastic that I made some esquire pickguards out of (see the shot of the esquire I made earlier this month below)). Once I get all that done, I will take a few more shots and post them on the blog, perhaps with some soundclips. This guitar sounds really nice, and I am very happy with it.

Thanks to everyone who has followed this project. I plan on doing some more in December. At the moment, I am considering tackling another Les Paul. Stay tuned.

The final specs on this guitar are as follows.

21 fret curly maple neck

1 piece Korina body

Callaham bridge and trem assembly

Don Mare “Super Sport” pickups w/ Callaham bridge plate

5-way pickup selector switch, 1-vol, 1-tone, 1-blender pot.

One a side note, I have started using these Sprague capacitors in all my guitars. At $1 a piece, they are really cheap (in comparison to Hovlands, etc), and to my ears have a much nicer sound. They are really throaty sounding, and give usable tones even with the tone control on “0.”

Part seven picks up with the frets having been installed and the excess clipped off.

The next step in the fretting is to use a file to file the ends of the frets flush to the edge of the fingerboard. I use fret clippers to get it as close as possible when cutting off the excess, and cut with the “blades” parallel to the fret tang so it doesn’t get bend when the excess is clipped off. Then with a file I file in the direction of the tang until the fret ends are flush. The fret ends then need to be beveled so that they are smooth as the hand is moving up and down the neck. There are fret beveling files for this job, but I’ve always found that sanding with an random-orbit sander with 200-grit just a great job, and makes quick work of the beveling. After the fret ends are beveled, I take 400-grit sandpaper and gently roll the fingerboard edge to create a smooth, slightly rounded surface. Here is a shot of the fret ends at this stage.

There is one more treatment for the fret ends, but this will wait until after the final sanding has been done.

The last step before final sanding is to cut the nut slot. The fretting template leaves me with two “slots” that mark the edges of the nut slot. To finish the slot, I cut these slots to depth, then I take a .020 hand saw and cut a third slot between them. Then with a little pressure I can pop the wood out due to the wood grain. As you can see in the shot below, it is important to drill the truss rod anchor hole deep enough that the brass anchor will be to the fret side of the nut. The brown line in the middle of the nut slot is the walnut plug. This is preferable to having to file the anchor if it is not drilled and set deep enough.

Once the slot has been rough cut, I clean it up with the edge of a file.

I use a bone nut blank and cut it to size, leaving about 1/32″ proud on each side of the fingerboard. I glue the nut in before I shape it, clamping both sides. It can take a few tries to get the nut slot perfectly flat, so I just test and file. 

Then I glue the nut with Duco cement, and clamp. I use the neck holder that I use during fretting to clamp on both sides.

Once the glue has dried, I take a pencil that I flatten on the belt sander to mark the fret height and radius onto the nut.

The pencil rides on the first and second frets, and gives me a marker for shaping the nut.

Of course, I won’t shape the nut right up to this mark, but it gives me a good guide. I then carefully shape the nut on the drum sander. An important note is that bone dust is a huge concern. I use a mask whenever I sand bone. The bone dust with calcify in your lungs if inhaled. Bad news later in life. Here is the nut shaped and flushed on the edges. In this shot, you can also see a little filler drying on the side of the nut, there isn’t really a gap, but I fill it just to be safe. When the finish goes on, I want the neck to be perfectly smooth.

This is not the final shape of the nut. It will get a little more attention when the slots are cut, but at this point, it is really close to the final shape.

Now it is time for final sanding of the neck. I start with a random orbit sander using 200-grit paper. This takes off wood really fast, even on maple, and even with 200-grit paper. Once I get the neck cleaned up with the power sander, I take the sheet of, and roll it by hand.

The sanding pad for the orbital is rigid enough the do a good job. I hold it on the ends and sand in an up and down motion. I do this again with a sheet of 300-grit, then 400. I repeatedly check the sanding with a bright light. The biggest lesson that I have learned about finishing is that it will never make work better, only worse. If there is a flaw, dent, or scratch in the wood, it will be twice as bad once the lacquer goes on. Lacquer is much thinner than it actually looks, and will not hide bad sanding, it will make it worse.

The last step before finishing is to fill the fret ends where the slot may be a little deeper than the fret (this is inevitable, and it is always better to cut a hair deep than too shallow), and the skunk stripe. Maple is not a porous wood, so it does not need to be filled. Walnut, however, like mahogany, has very open pores which need to be filled so that the finish doesn’t show lots of little holes. Usually I fill porous woods with oil-based grain filler. For a neck like this, since it entails such a small area, I just use Elmer’s wood filler. This stuff is available at Home Depot or Lowes, works great, dries rock hard, and takes shaded finish well. I use oak for the fret ends, and walnut colored filler for the skunk stripe on the back of the neck.

Here is a shot of the filled fret ends. The oak color is slightly darker and yellower than the maple. This is actually perfect. Although the filler advertises itself as being “stainable,” when the amber lacquer hits it, it doesn’t color the filler as much as the maple, which absorbs more. In my experience, if I use a filler the same color as the raw maple, it shows up as too light once the ambered lacquer goes on. This shot is before the filler has dried and been sanded.

After sanding with 400 grit, it is nearly invisible:

Notice the towel on the work bench. This is needed to prevent any scratches after final sanding.

Before the skunk stripe is filled, I mask off the maple. It would sand out if it got on the maple, but I don’t want to mess with that.

The stripe is then filled.

And then sanded with 400-grit paper. This filler is hard, but sands easily.

At this juncture, there is only one thing left to do before the lacquer goes on, sign the neck:

The next chapter will begin the finishing stage.

In part 6, it is time for the neck to get fretted, and the tuner holes drilled.

My tuner drilling jig is about as simple as it gets–tracing paper. I measure across and down to get the spot for the first hole, then align the tracing paper and measure down for the last hole to get the template in line. Then, I simply poke through with a scrawl to make a hole for the center of each tuner hole.

Based on the holes, I then drill 6 11/32″ holes through the headstock. It is important to clamp the headstock so that when the bit comes through the back, the neck doesn’t become a whirling dervish and smash your face to a bloody pulp. This is not joke; I speak from experience (though managed to narrowly avoid the smashed face part). Also make sure to drill into something. I use an old block of buckeye. This prevents tear-out as the bit exits the back. The better the headstock is clamped the lower the chances are of this happening.

Here is the final result.

Now, it is time for fretting. The first task is to prep the fingerboard surface. Since it is much harder to final sand after the frets are installed, this is the best time to do so. I sand the fingerboard surface to 2000 grit. This is most certainly overkill, but it is kinda fun to see the unfinished maple shine.

Steward MacDonald has a really nifty little instrument for checking the depth of fret slots. This actually works really well for cleaning the impacted sawdust out of the fret slots. I go fret by fret checking the depth and deepening where needed. Almost all the slots are undercut, so most of the frets should need a little extra depth cut into them. I use a small .020 hand saw for this task.

After getting the slots to the correct depth, I prep the fretwire with a fretwire bender. I put a bit of over-bend in the wire. The idea behind this is that the fret tang will not be able to come back out the way it went in after the frets have been pressed in. Dan Erlewine gives an insightful discussion of Fender’s original fretting method in the 50’s. In a nutshell, the frets were actually pushed into the slot from the side. The idea being that once the workstation is set up, frets can be installed at a very efficient rate. The added benefit is that there is not way out for the fret tang.

The frets are then lightly tacked onto the fretboard.

Then pressed into the slots using a fret press caul mounted in the drill press.

In my experience, this method gives much more consistent results than hammering the frets into the board. The caul applies equal pressure across the fret, and prevents bending or damaging the fret.

After the frets are pressed in, I clip off the excess fretwire.

My goal with this project was to try and build the neck over the span of one weekend. Up until this point, I would estimate that I have about 15 hours in the neck (taking photographs slows the progress a little bit). This last shot is as far as I will get this weekend, but there is not much left to do with the neck, and the finish (pun intended) line is in sight. All that is left now is to clean up and bevel the fret ends, install the nut (I am out of bone, so I am waiting on the brown truck for that part), and then the final sanding. At that point, it will be time to break out the spray gear and finish the neck in nitrocellulose lacquer. 

In part 5, the neck profile gets carved.

The first step is to rough-mark the contour lines at the headstock and at the body joint. These are the do not cross lines.

I used to carve all of the neck out by hand. This works great for mahogany necks, but on maple, particularly on figured maple, this is a bear. To speed up the rough shaping, I use the belt sander and oscillating spindle sander.

Here is the rough profile sanded into the neck:

Once the back is done, it is time to camber the fretboard surface. Vintage 50s fenders use a 7-1.4″ radius for the fretboard curvature. For my tastes, this is way too round. It makes chording easy in open positions, but makes bends in the upper registers fret out. I have a 50’s reissue strat that has a more manageable 9.5 radius, but having played mostly Gibsons most of my guitar-playing tenure, I am attached to the 12″ radius, even on fender necks. This next shot shows a 12″ radiused aluminum sanding block with 150 grit adhesive sandpaper. At this stage, the pencil lines from the inlays are a helpful guide. The pencil marks show how much wood has been removed, and how much is left to go. This is fairly slow work, and wears the tips off your fingers.

After sanding the radius onto the fingerboard plane, and then sanding some more to ensure that the entire surface is perfectly level, I switch to a shorter block with 300 grit paper.

The next step is to mark the side of the fingerboard for the side dot markers.

The holes are drilled

The the plastic rod is glued, inserted, and the cut flush.

After installing the side dots, I clean up the back of the neck with planes, a gouge, and sanding. This is not the final sanding, but it is getting pretty close at this point.

This last shot shows the progress, along with the stratocaster that I used to take measurements for this neck.

The next chapter covers tuners and fretting.

Continue to Part 6

Part 4 details the installation of the walnut filler strip and headstock plug, and rough cutting the fret slots.

Now that the truss rod channel and truss rod are completed, it is time to hide the mess. First up is the headstock end where the truss rod anchor resides. Modern fender necks have the adjustment at the headstock end so that the neck doesn’t need to be removed to adjust the neck. From a practical standpoint, this is a good idea, but I like that classic look of the walnut plug on the headstock. I buy 3/8″ walnut dowel pre-made since it is a real headache to make your own without the right tools. I get mine here. They ship very quickly, and pack it for the apocalypse. Here is the dowel, and a cutoff installed in the headstock:

After the glue dries, I sand it flush:

Next, I cut a strip of walnut and plane it to 1/4″ thick (the width of the truss channel route), and cut the curve of the channel into the strip (I just trace this curve off the routing template for the truss channel).

I cut it to length (marking the nut endpoints from the jig) and then round the edges, then test fit until I get the rounded edges and length perfect.

The strip then gets glued and clamped. It is important not to put too much clamping pressure on the strip. If it is clamped too hard during gluing, it will also freeze the rod beneath it. The truss rod needs to be snug, but still able to move if it is going to be functional. Once the glue dries, the filler strip is planed down with an ibex finger plane, then sanded flush.

Now it is time to rough in the fret slots.

Astute observers will notice that in this shot, it looks like it would be impossible to have cut the first few slots because of the size the headstock. One of the neat features of the Stewart MacDonald fretting mitre box is that all four panels are removable. 

Here is the neck with the slots roughed in. The slots will be cut to final depth once the fretboard have been cambered.

The last step before I begin shaping the back of the neck is to drill and install the inlay markers. I simply intersect two lines to give the centerpoint for each marker, then drill and glue in the black plastic inlays with duco cement.

That’s all for now, next the neck will be shaped.

Continue to Part 5

Time to finish off the truss rod in this installment.

Starting with the butt of the neck where the truss adjustment screw will reside, the first hole to be drilled will go through to the end of the truss rod channel route. Getting these two to connect, and connect at the same angle can be tricky. Drilling this hole free-hand would be extremely difficult, and inconsistent. I take my cue from Melvin Hiscock’s guitar-building book and build jigs to ensure that the holes are drilled straight down the centerline and at the correct angle to connect with the truss rod route. This is one of the places where you can see the genius of Leo Fender’s design. If you are making one neck, this is not an efficient way to make a neck. If you are making hundreds of guitar necks, it is hard to think of a faster way to do it. Fender guitars really were the first to be designed with production in mind (yet another example that technology doesn’t just make content (in this case a guitar neck) more or less efficient, but also shapes the content itself). Anyway, here are the shots:

The next hole is 3/8″, and is drilled just slightly deeper than the depth of the truss adjustment nut:

What we have now are two holes, one connecting the truss rod route to the butt of the neck, and one hole for the adjustment nut.

On the head end, I do essentially the same thing, a 1/4″ hole connecting to the truss route, and a 3/8″ hole for the truss rod anchor and walnut plug.

Now it’s time to make the truss rod itself. I make these out of 3/16″ steel. First I thread one end with a 10-32 thread die. This end is for the truss rod anchor which will reside at the headstock end of the neck.

I make the anchor out of a part I found at Home Depot. It is a perfect fit for the 3/8″ hole, but needed to be drilled and tapped for 10-32 threads. This is quickly achieved on the drill press.

The anchor is then screwed onto the threaded rod and peened.

I then insert the rod into the neck, with the anchor at the headstock, and mark where it exits the bottom of the neck.

The rod is cut about 5/16″ short of the end of the neck so that the adjustment nut can actually adjust, and then threaded, and the adjustment nut screwed on.

Continue to Part 4

The last post left off with the curved truss rod channel having been routed. Now the blank begins to look like a guitar neck.

The first step is to cut out the outline of the template on the bandsaw. I cut close to the mark, without going inside the line (an actually leaving about 1/16″ to be safe from blade wander).

Here is the neck bandsawn out:

It would be safe to take the neck straight to the router now, but just to be on the safe side (both for my fingers, and to prevent the maple from tearing out on the router, especially at the endgrain) I get as close to the line as possible on the sander:

Here is the neck after sanding, and ready for the template to be attached. I use double sided duct tape to attach the MDF template to the neck, then route it flush using a 1/2″ pattern routing bit. I am missing a couple of pictures here, but it is fairly self-explanatory.

Here is the neck after routing. You can see a few burn marks from the router which are easily sanded off. I route the neck blank flush with the template in small passes, taking off about 1/6″ per pass. You can see this stratification in a couple of the burn marks.

Next, using a Wagner Safe-T Plane, I plane the headstock to within 1/32″ of its final thickness:

Then, on a floor-mounted belt sander, I rough out the transition:

That’s all for Part 2. In the next installment, I will be drilling and filling the rest of the truss channel, and making the truss rod.

Continue on to Part 3.

Part 1 covers the measuring and cutting the curved truss channel.

I start these necks with 3-1/4″ x 3-1/4″ maple blanks that I get at a local mill. They are usually $20 for figured maple, and I usually get three necks from each blank (barring surprises when I cut into the wood). 

I a try to get quarter-sawn wood whenever possible, especially with figured maple, which although hard, has a tendency to warp.

Here is the prepared blank (1″ thick) for this neck, and a stratocaster neck template made out of 3/4″ MDF:

Guitar building is all about centerlines. I have the centerlines marked on the MDF template. Next I have to place the template on the blank with the centerlines on each end equidistant from the top edge of the blank, then mark the outline of the template:

The two vertical lines marked on the blank are for the truss rod channel. These lines mark where the filler strip (walnut skunk-stripe) will begin and end.

On most guitar necks, the truss rod channel is routed from the fingerboard side, then covered by the fingerboard. On a one-piece neck, that would be impossible, so the channel has to be routed from the back of the neck (where you palm rests), and filled with a strip of wood (in the case of fender-style guitars, this strip is walnut). The challenge is exacerbated somewhat by the need for the truss channel to be curved (deeper at the ends than at the center) so that the truss rod can function properly. Here is the jig that I made to route the truss rod channel. 

This shot is from the underside, and shows the ledge that will butt against the top edge of the neck blank (this is the reason for measuring to get the centerline of the neck template even).

The jig is then attached with 5 screws, through the jig, through the neck blank, and into the work table (this prevents movement when the router guide pulls against the ledge).

Then routed with a 1/4″ strait-cut bit:

Here is a shot of the router guide running along the back of the jig:

Here is the routing in progress:

Here is the finished truss rod channel:

Continued in Part 2: Making the blank look like a neck