Four New Necks

While the water-based lacquer is curing on my other guitar projects, I took the time to start on four new necks. Here are some photos of my progress so far:

That's one long flamed Maple neck blank!

Marking the necks with a template.

Cutting out a neck.

One of four rough necks.

Four rough necks.

3/8" tuner holes.

Routing a truss rod slot.

Finished truss rod slot.

Carving and blending the neck's contour.

Now For The Fun Part: Carving The Neck Contours

After roughing out the contour with my Scheltema Neck Jig, I use a couple of Iwasaki files to finalize the contour of each neck. It's physically demanding work, but I get better results this way.

It takes 30-45 minutes to get to this point with each neck.