Having built my second neck from scratch, I wanted to look back at what went well and what didn’t. Post mortems are really useful things if you remember to re-read them before you repeat a task. For this reason I’m putting it up on my blog to ensure I don’t lose it.
The Good
- Overall it looks a better result
- Good quality chisels make the nut cutting a lot nicer
- Sanding around the headstock edges is a lot better. Routing these bits seems to give rough results around the bottom of the headstock, requires time and patience to tidy
- Having a bandsaw and a plan for thining the headstock (and blending in the slope behind the nut) means a lot better result
- Tuner holes must be drilled using a guide, the drill press has too much wander
- Brass inserts for the cavity cover seem a good idea. Buy for the neck screws?
- Truss rod with wheel at bottom are easier to make
- New heavier duty fret snipper is easier, no need for these posh guitar ones
The Not So Good
- Rosewood chips very easily. Be more careful around the nut and when beveling the frets with a file
- My fret hammer technique doesn’t work. Need to buy a fret pressing shoe for the drill press
- My neck shaping method is still completely hit and miss. This was meant to be a copy of my MusicMan axis neck which is amazing (the best I’ve ever found). It isn’t even close. Need to look at profiling it better
- The side dots are messy. They are too small to clamp and yet the precision I’m getting without a guide is way off. Not sure the solution for this. Maybe purchase a fine hole marker?
- After sanding the neck is 1mm too narrow at the nut. Build with this buffer in mind
- Counter-boring the end of the truss rod hole needs a new plan. Drill guide?
- Keep marking the next fret, when cutting frets from the reel