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.

eGuitar Plan's Daily Diary 12/06/11

I was going to detail my later electric guitar build in a multi-part series, but I have so many projects going on, I decided to organize this blog into a daily diary. Today would have been Part 3 of my latest build, but it will now be the eGuitar Plan's Daily Diary 12/06/11. So here is what happened today:

This morning, I glued up a couple of Ash blanks for a pair of Envirocaster guitars. One will be a single cut and the other a double cut. Since moisture has been reintroduced to the wood, I'll let them sit for a couple of weeks.

To make a neck, I start with a suitable blank and my neck template. 

I trace the outline of the template onto the blank and mark the holes for the tuners and the ends of the truss rod. Next, I take the blank to my band saw and cut the shape about 1/16" (1.5mm) outside of the outline.

After cutting out the neck, I use a homemade pattern sander on my drill press to fine tune the shape.

This is how the neck looks after fine tuning on the pattern sander. I also planed the headstock thickness, drilled the tuner holes, routed the truss rod slot and formed the back contour. From the original blank to this stage took about three hours of work.