Podcast 80 - The very basics of carving a guitar neck

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Welcome to Crimson Guitars ru-vid.com... and welcome to the 80th episode of the guitar builders basics video podcast from Ben at www.crimsonguitars.com.
In this episode, Ben answers a viewer's question on how to get the basic geometry of a guitar neck correct.
He uses profile gauges, templates, angle grinders, rasps, and spokeshaves and shows you how to judge what may work best for you, as you make your own guitar neck.
Chapters
0:00 Introduction
2:21 First - make a template with a profile contour gauge
3:43 Begin to carve at the nut.
4:24 From there you can use an angle grinder or a spokeshave
6:19 Size and shape not important - straight lines are what you are after
7:34 Many tools but a half-round rasp and a spokeshave are good choices
8:37 Conclusion
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Опубликовано:

5 июл 2024

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Комментарии : 86

@MarkLindsayCNC 9 лет назад

Wenge splinters in your chin? I BLAME TOM! If I may be so bold as to make a suggestion, I'd like to offer one. When I started out carving necks, I went to my local home improvement store and got hold of some cheap lumber to practice on. In my case, I got an 8 foot long 1"X4" piece of dimensional construction lumber. I cut it into neck-length pieces and practiced cutting to shape and carving on them. I think I paid something like $5 US for the board. I figured it was better to totally destroy a $5 piece of cheap wood than a $40 piece of maple. True, working a piece of maple is very different than working a piece of fir or pine. But the techniques used are basically the same. Once I was satisfied with my ability to consistently carve on the cheap lumber, I "graduated" to the more expensive stuff. It worked for me - your mileage may vary.

@officialauspecs1285 7 лет назад

just carved my first guitar neck the other day. Rasped the whole thing. Turned out amazing, was so intimidated at first but its really quite easy and fun!!

@CrimsonCustomGuitars 7 лет назад

Lot's of work, took me several days with a blunt rasp for my first time :/ B

@kilgoretrout3966 8 лет назад

Ben: Contour Gauge.

@wombat6 9 лет назад

Hey ! I'm TheFrenchGerman on the forum, by the way. Just wanted to say a big thank you for addressing my question :). I'll get to it soon !

@TheseusTitan 7 лет назад

It’s called: Big Horn 19063 10 Inch Plastic Contour Gauge

@uniquepieces7365 9 лет назад

Neck carving my favourite and most therapeutic part of a build! This is the way I shape my necks, and works really well. Mark a centre line down the back of your neck, at the first fret position mark 5 mm either side of centre line at the 12th fret mark 10 mm either side of the centre line and join the lines up down the neck (continue these lines the length of your neck). Next measure your neck and fretboard depth and mark a line 2/3 of the way along the edge (should be close to the fretboard) Now you can hack out the material between the side marks and the 5 and 10mm marks. Once that is done then take out the sharp edges by faceting to form a smooth rounded neck. Obviously don't cut into the headstock area or the heal area. I use a very old rasp and a very sharp double cut file then sand paper ala shoe polishing technique to round over. If you want to match a neck use a profile gauge at the 1 st and 12th fret positions draw a rectangle on a piece of paper that matches your neck cut blank then transfer the profile shapes you can then draw straight angled lines toward the centre on the paper and that will give you the measurements that you need to transfer to the neck. By all means practice on a scrap piece first.

@nothingsworking 9 лет назад

As a beginner I think the best technique is faceting. It involves drawing tapered lines along the neck and some measuring, but if you got the lines right you just need to file away the wood between them. First I got the two outter "big" corners off, that leaves me 5 sides. Then I file away the newly created 4 edges. After that you got 9 sides that you can easily round over. But you have to figure out the measurements for yourself. (I drew my lower and upper neck profile in 3D to figure the numbers out, but just because I love modeling) He uses this method: ru-vid.com I also cut a big enough thin pipe in half I use for sanding (sticky paper inside) after I got it good enough with the rasp. The difference between the two profiles cause no problem, you can blend it easily if the pipe fits the bigger/upper profile. This would give you a nice C shape. Probably slow but works for me. And that "strat" neck is a beauty!

@jonahguitarguy 9 лет назад

The most satisfying part of the whole build for me is the neck carve. Although I tried your angle grinder method on a carved top and that was fun as well.

@jeffcrist2977 2 года назад

Rasp and spokeshave. All I like to use. Thanks, nice tips and tricks.

@420musicsaveslives 8 лет назад

im going to summit school of guitar building in bc canada. just starting to learn how we shape a neck. what ive been taught so far is to use the contour gauge to get a rough profile of your neck on paper then measuring the facets as you file down fractions of the neck eventually making it smooth using a scraper as well to make the facets as flat as you can

@GroovemanJ5 4 года назад

Always a good source of information.

@givemeajackson 9 лет назад

shaping the neck on my first build was a bit of a nightmare. i first tried rasps, which took ages. then i tried chisels, which were faster, but i was in constant fear of splitting off too much material. but then, as soon as i started using an angle grinder with flapdisks, everything went superbly. got the shape pretty much perfectly with that thing, and then just cleaned it up with a random orbital sander.

@thedancingpostman 8 лет назад

Thank you, most helpful, I am going to build my own Cigar box guitar from scratch, just for the hell of t.

@RiotBadger 9 лет назад

I've always used a rasp and then a spoke shave for necks. Quite a theraputic process!

@PeterGologranc 8 лет назад

hahaha x'D "they chew them out... I don't know ... " xD that got me to a point where I bursted out laughing and waking up all of my family :D

@PuckettCigarBoxGuitar 5 лет назад

this is a great channel - i've learned so much great common sense information here - thank you !!!

@zenguitarankh 5 лет назад

These are always awesome and lots of laughs. So thanks for that....I'm trying to build the bridge from tech to luthier and I'm going to start on necks soon. I have tons of bodies without necks and want to make necks for them to bring them back. Where should I start? Or is there a video that already covers this so that you're not repeating yourself? Thanks so much again.

@DanielRodriguez-eh1qd 2 года назад

The neck and specifically shaping the neck is the aspect that makes me the most nervous about building a guitar.

@nbdysfool3 2 года назад

I wish I could afford the tools to do this! Great video Ben!

@zoltankrizer7335 3 года назад

Hi Ben, thanks for the tutorial videos! I watched many of them and learned many things from it. One question regarding the neck carving with spokeshave. Can you please explain why is preferred the one with curved sole instead of flat sole? Thanks for your answer! Z

@ZuoLuoT 9 лет назад

As far as carving a neck, I'll have to try out spokeshaves for my next guitar project I'm awaiting your video on how to set 'em up properly ;) I'm thinking of fanned frets, how would you go and make an angled headstock with fanned frets? Or do I absolutely have to have a straight lower headstock like a Fender ? Thanks and keep 'em coming !

@w13rdguy 5 лет назад

Very helpful, thanks!

@Tterras 7 лет назад

When using the red contour gauge, how do you keep the shape uniform all way across the neck? Especially as the neck widens.

@cobitanium 9 лет назад

Hi Ben ^^ I want to make a locking nut for a seven string guitar. The problem it's (well, it's not really a problem) for a left handed version. I could maybe buy one but I want to make it less expensive possible. The other concerns is about cutting accurately the the strings slot. What are my options ? Keep up the good work, Coby

@louisaccardi2268 2 года назад

That was a good explanation because we have a tendency to complicate things and he demystified the process. These people need to just practice doing it a few times then worry about the fine points as they do it a number of times.

@BRRRwm 9 лет назад

I am currently in the middle of building a kit guitar, a Dean Razorback, and I sanded it to 220 and have the grain filler drying now. Should I put a couple coats of sanding sealer before adding dye? I am going for a black to blue burst. I used "Timber Mate" grain filler. I am going to do the back and sides all black and burst into a blue center. I have never done this before. Does sanding sealing the grain filler matter? Also I am going to have it clear coated by a local body shop. Please help.

@dylanewing1245 9 лет назад

Hey Ben, I heard you mention that you rent out tables for a few days to people sometimes to perhaps build a guitar or something along the lines. How much would something like that cost? I would literally fly from the U.S. to do that.

@bch2322 3 года назад

I KNOW THIS EPISODE WAS FOREVER AGO I'M SURE THIS WILL NOT GET READ BUT I JUST SAW IT. I CHECK THEM OUT AND MANY OTHERS FOR LITTLE BITS OF ENLIGHTENMENT AND SELF GRATIFICATION WHENEVER I AM IN SYNC WITH SOMEONE I RESPECT SUCH AS YOURSELF. I LIKE TO KNOW THAT I HAVE FIGURED OUT A SIMILAR WAY TO ACCOMPLISH A TASK. ANYWAY I WAS WATCHING THIS AND JUST WANTED TO SAY THAT I USE CABINET SCRAPERS TO SHAPE MY NECKS. JUST THE STRAIGHT SMALLER ONES. ESSENTIALLY THE SAME IDEA OF CONNECTING 2 POINTS WITH A SOMEWHAT DIFFERENT METHOD. I CAN HAUL ASS WITH ONE AND GET MY NECK FEELING PERFECT IN AN HOUR OR SO THEN PROCEED TO SAND PAPER. DON'T KNOW IF OTHER DO IT THIS WAY I'M SURE SOMEONE DOES BUT JUST DROPPING MY 2 CENTS. LOVE THE VIDEOS. I ALWAYS COME AWAY WITH SOMETHING AND I'VE BEEN BUILDING FOR NEARLY 15 YEARS. THANKS FOR HELPING A NEW GENERATION OF LUTHIERS IN THEIR JOURNEY TO BECOMING GREAT. SORRY FOR TH ALL CAPS STARTED OUT THIS WAY AND JUST TOO LAZY TO GO BACK.

@jackalfox332 9 лет назад

Hi Ben, I have a bit of tangent topic (topic tangent, tangent thingy, is that an actual term?) which leads away ever so slightly from guitars. With the current debate of which tone woods to use to build guitars and how they affect tone, this got me thinking about amplifier cabinets; how they're built/constructed, what species of woods are used, how they could be laminated etc., do you think this would have an additional affect of your overall tone? If so, have you ever thought about, or would you plan to make 2x12 and 4x12 cabinets and the like in the future? Thank you!

@tolerbearALTII 6 лет назад

Could you do a video on the different scale lengths of a guitar neck? How can one replace a 21 fret neck with a scale length of 25.5 inch with a 22 fret or 24 fret neck with the same 25.5 scale length? Or even if it can be done?

@hejmdallr11 9 лет назад

A good method to start carving a neck is to measure the width at the nut and near the hilt, divide them by four and mark those points on the neck.For example you have the width at the nut is 48mm, divided by 8 is 6mm, then you mark at 6mm, 12mm, 18mm, 24mm(middle), 30mm, 36mm, 42mm and the width near the heel is 64mm, divided by 8 is 8mm, then you mark at 8, 16, 24, 32(middle), 40, 48, 56. The next step would be to connect those points so that you will have 7 lines across the back of the neck and they flare out as the neck widens from nut to heel. From there you can easily use a rasp to start profiling your neck. I think this is the easiest way to carve a neck. Cheers and best of luck!

@redninja8672 6 лет назад

Question for you Sir. I am going to in the very near future purchase what will be my 1st guitar’s materials. I am having a hard time here in Southern California finding what I want for my neck. I can purchase already dried maple from a variety of places. However, my problem is I want to use lament layers for my neck, not a pre fab piece. I will be constructing a Bass and would like the neck to go all the way through from tip to toe. -Can’t find anyone yet with prefab that is long enough for this- Can I take these so called neck “blanks” and flip them on their side (kind of pricey if I do this) and proceed to laminate my pieces together or will the wood grain be inn such a way as to disrupt the final product. By the way, I will be painting the entire guitar so grain will all be filled in the end and I don’t care about the “appearance” of the grain for now. Thank You Kindly! Signed, Eric. “The Red Ninja”

@littlearsehole75 9 лет назад

Best way to make a neck: throw money at Crimson.

@LeonardoSilva-gr5fx 9 лет назад

for me "touch" is the best way to carve a profile, it doesn't even matter if it isn't a "classical profile", if you like it, then that's the best profile you can get, just touch it and carve/shave/sand away the parts you don't like. I had in result some very weird Custom C-shape profiles, but they still feel amazing to the touch, while not being super slim (like Ibanez Wizard necks), you would still need to visually check some parameters, like thickness of the whole neck as well as the "straight line" that Ben said. for me I guess is pretty natural doing neck profiles this way, I do my carved tops this way too, all by feel and touch mostly.

@walterrider9600 8 лет назад

thank you

@closingyak17894 Год назад

I have a knot in my neck, this is preventing me to shape that area to the desired shape, do you have any recommendations on how I can get through it?

@Sotek101 9 лет назад

Is that a wenge/purpleheart neck? That's exactly what I was going to speck when I order my custom neck :)

@IAmTheWoodmeister 9 лет назад

Carving a neck profile. My steps: Get the back side of the neck where the profile will be as flat as possible. Put pencil marks on that surface. As you work you can see the high and low spots. Work flat until all marks are gone. I use a spoke shave. With a file, rasp or chisel, whittle a general slightly oversized shape/round profile at the first fret area and another one where the profile meets the heel part of the neck. Leave these slightly oversized. Hog of the material in between these two profiles using the spoke shave. This gives you a flat transition between these two profiles. If the profiles are at different radius end, you have a perfect taper between the two profiles. Now "average" out the surfaces using sand paper going thru progressive grits using the shoe shine method of sanding. I so so in a transverse motion while progressively going down the length of the neck. Following that I press the sandpaper to the radius of the neck and go straight up and down along the length without any transverse movement. I think of this as "averaging" the profile. I have been working by feel since I am building for myself but I am sure you could use a profile gauge and do very accurate profiles using this method. Btw thanks for all that you share with us! The best guitar building instruction on the internet!

@wintermute9000 9 лет назад

Are you guys actually supplying timber yet? About to buy some blanks to make an explorer and I'd love for you lot to have some business!

@tolerbearALTII 6 лет назад

How do I successfully separate a scarf joint that's under the fretboard on a Jackson style neck? I have a through the body guitar neck that the headstock is irreparable (long story) so I'm planning on using a donor guitar neck and grafting the headstock from one neck to the other. I know I have to remove the fretboard to do this operation. The guitar neck that I'm trying to save has a Floyd Rose locking nut on it. I'm planning on using a modern smaller screw into neck rather than a through the neck screw type. Any help you can offer is helpful. Plus I've never done this before. I'm a beginning luthier.

@CrimsonCustomGuitars 6 лет назад

This is a huge undertaking if you've not done any luthiery before.. Not impossible but a real trial by fire.. You will need to replace the fretboard with all that that entails for starters. You may as well build a whole new neck at this stage.. However, I would remove the fretboard with heat and then bandsaw through the scarf joint... B

@BurninSven1 3 года назад

If you use an electric grinder you risk getting wood fibers getting stuck in the disk and if it for some reason it would get wet the wood might expand and with the high rpms it rotates bad stuff might happen when parts of it start flying around. So a spokes shave is probably much safer

@fusion-music 8 лет назад

in the 70s they were made with metal wires and called contour gauges. Profile gauge is the modern name.

@fenderstratguy 5 лет назад

They still call 'em contour gauges around here (SoCal USA)

@stephengent9974 9 лет назад

I would say laying out the neck using facets will be so much easier to guide a novice. Check out Dave Fletchers videos on guitar building. He shows it very well. I have tried once used this method and it is quite intuitive, Just check what you are doing regularly. It is a good idea to practice before moving onto the real thing. Spoke shaves are great as are profiled scrapers. Spokeshaves are cheap really

@ironcross112 3 года назад

teach us how to make the back of the guitar like ovation does

@WoodesosGuitarMods 9 лет назад

It's cause you're a dad;-) The rock never goes away. You'll find yourself years from now rocking in a queue somewhere and wonder why.. Awesome video today also:-)

@IAmTheWoodmeister 9 лет назад

I had some typos but I can't edit. Sorry! Hope I transferred the general idea okay!

@North0house 6 лет назад

Cool hair.

@KangarooSkateboards 9 лет назад

To the guy asking, look at Fletcher's hand crafted guitar's channel. He shows an alternative way on his stratocaster build

@neilquarrell7551 9 лет назад

Profile comb Ben.

@jatna77 9 лет назад

I don't think there are enough details in this video. For instance, how do you use the profile gauge to check what you are carving? You have the profile, you have what your carving, and.......?

@5150stephen 9 лет назад

whatever you do, dont get a draw knife, they are lethal for necks if you can control them, take a scary amount of material off, honestly i think spoke shave and rasp is the best way to go

@esa062 9 лет назад

Ouch. Wenge splinters have a nasty habit of causing infections. That's how I make a neck, except I use a straight bottom spokeshave for straight carving.

@wintermute9000 9 лет назад

Apparently they use Wenge dust to stun fish before catching them in Africa. lol

@bertzx9r894 9 лет назад

Maybe surprising but in general, the name is much simpler than "profile gauge" they are known-even in engineering- as 'shape gauge' B. Young

@kaeseistcool 9 лет назад

Better solution. Use a Fretboard radius Jig for the neck. The rest of the profile, like flatter top what so ever by hand and feeling.

@Zackchahoud 9 лет назад

Hey Ben, what email do we send our ideas to when you reach 30,000 subscribers ?

@KenIn_NH 9 лет назад

Ben, the red gadget is a contour gauge. Would love to see a tour of that wonderful looking tool cabinet behind you! Perhaps describe your favorites and not so favorites and why. Cheers!

@jamesrobinson529 5 лет назад

I emailed a high profile custom guitar parts company that told me the following options are are not & will not be available. 24.75 in scale length 1 3/4 in nut Compound Radius Reverse Strat headstock I know nothing about building any part of a guitar and my only motivation for wanting to learn to build is that I can't find what I want. My question is, are those specs out of the realm of possibility? I was told that they'd have to reprogram their CNC. To someone like me that has no idea what that entails, initial question was, "When are you going to reprogram or write a program for the CNC machine?" I'm like David without a sling shot on this one. Please excuse my ignorance but, how hard could it be for a professional to do? I understand their position from a business standpoint, as it's a small number of people that ask for something that specific.

@christop672 9 лет назад

Profile gauge sounds right to me but amazon(at least amazon dot ca) lists them as "Contour Gauges".

@Kabayoth 4 года назад

How to improve Crimson: 1: Build me a better Gretch Duo Jet 2: Build me a better Buckethead baritone 3: Build me a better doubleneck based on an Eppiphone Casino. 4: Build me a better long scale, 8 string bass Or: I take a 3 month course and do all of the above myself. By my calculation: I'm asking for $20,000 in gear. Might as well go another $5k in and ask for custom amps for everything.

@antoniuspaganorumrex6183 Год назад

Contour gauge!

@bobbex89 9 лет назад

Can I buy that S-style neck?

@CrimsonCustomGuitars 9 лет назад

Yeah if you want, drop me an email to office@crimsonguitars.com and I'll see what the specs are.. She had a blemish in the headstock which is why we kept it, I'll email you pics..

@bobbex89 9 лет назад

I have dropped you a email last night.

@DavidImrie 4 года назад

I miss this format

@KainzMusic 9 лет назад

Best way to take my money? That guy behind the gas station who was waving the knife had a good idea... But seriously, I'm a huge huge fan of compound radius fingerboards and wider necks. Too many companies offer 10 in radius and a 1 5/8" nut. And nothing else. Those of us with big sausage fingers really like those wide nuts.