Project 1
Make your own wide neck
Neck project
Project neck
wide les paul neck
wider neck for les paul
big fingers
fat fingers
Ok, this is my first attempt at making a bolt on neck, the first thing that is needed is a nice piece of wood.
Any hardwood will do, unless you are trying to emulate the sound of another guitar.
Having said that, i will be making this one from a lump of mahogany, actually from a large shelf that i have had for many years:
As a shelf, its a waste of a fantastic piece of wood, and whats worse is, i painted it matt black.......i must rescue it .
wide neck to fit les paul
mahogany wide guitar neck
home made guitar neck
I have decided that the neck will be for a Les Paul style body, I dont have any wide les paul style necks and i like the feel of the Les Paul.
Project neck
wide les paul neck
wider neck for les paul
big fingers
fat fingers
First of all, I cut the general shape of the neck out of my mahogany shelf:
Project neck
wide les paul neck
wider neck for les paul
big fingers
fat fingers
Next, I routed a slot for the truss rod to sit into, then cut the bottom of the headstock shape down to the top of the neck.
As you can see, I routed all the way up into the headstock, I will be fitting an inlaid laminate to the headstock, I will drill a hole through the laminate for the allen key to adjust the truss rod.
If i wasn't fitting the laminate, I would have stopped routing when i reached the nut position and drilled from the headstock into the routed slot for the allen key to pass through when making adjustments.
Project neck
wide les paul neck
wider neck for les paul
big fingers
fat fingers
The headstock inlaid laminate.
Project neck
wide les paul neck
wider neck for les paul
big fingers
fat fingers
I have now cut the sides down, this one should end up about 2-1/4" wide at the fat end and 1-7/8 at the nut.
So far so good, now i am going to attempt to shape the back of
the neck starting with the tool in the picture, its called a Spoke
Shave.
Project neck
wide les paul neck
wider neck for les paul
big fingers
fat fingers
I'll be back with a progress report very soon, if i dont muck it up :-)
Project neck
wide les paul neck
wider neck for les paul
big fingers
fat fingers
contact: bill@twangtwang.com