Love this design and I plan to build one. One question I have is about the centre of rotation. I like to radius my fretboards first so I plan to add a small matching radius piece for the neck to sit on, that is on top of the aluminium profile. Say this is 3mm and thus raises the whole neck up 3mm from the aluminium profile, am I right in thinking that I would just need to drill the top holes in the neck support piece 3mm higher to match? Or am I missing something about the mechanics of this. Thanks!
I never tried it that way but my gut feeling says, that you strategy should work fine. The important part is that you match the rotation axis with the highest point on you radiused fretboard which is exactly what you described. Good luck and let us know if it worked out for you!
Sehr schönes Video. Danke Hab ich was übersehen ? Wie befestigst du den Hals am Aluprofil. Der Griffbrettradius ist wohl noch nicht gemacht ?? HAst du schon mal ausprobiert ob ein am ende runder Fräser besser ist ?? Da wäre doch am Übergang dann weniger Arbeit, oder hab ich da einen Gedankenfehler. Gruß Otto
Hallo Otto. Genau, das Griffbrett hat noch keinen Radius. Dann klebe ich ein 40mm breites Tape aufs Griffbrett und auf das Aluprofil. Paar Tropfen Sekundenkleber hält das dann perfekt. Doppelseitiges Klebeband würde natürlich auch gehen. Ich finde, dass das Profil mit einem flachen Fräser schöner wird als mit einem abgerundeten.
Thanks for the plans and video. Some things are still not clear to me. Does the size (thickness of the cutter) determine how much offset from the original size of the neck contour profile must be? It used to happen to me that the cutter (router bit) did not catch the sides of the guitar neck blank (I was use 11mm straight bit)....Some people charge for this kind of information and you give it away for free. Very generous from you. Thank you
You are welcome. I learned so much from different people online so this is my way to give some of my experiences back to the guitar building community. I use a 12mm bit on my jig and it works quite well to also catch the sides although I always test upfront if the sides are touching the bit. If so, I lift the router up a tiny bit to ensure not to cut material from the fretboard edge. Sure, the angle of the router bit in respect to the neck has an effect on the result so normally the sides will have more traces from the edge of the bit but to me it is not a big issue and with a bit of sanding it will be gone. I hope this helps.
Bass Mark thanks so much. I attach a long strip of painters tape on both the neck and the aluminum bar and then glue them together with some drops of super glue. It is a common technique a lot of CNC people use to secure parts during milling. If you search for it, you will find some good tutorials how to do it. Sure this only works if you do the fretboard radius afterwards because you need perfectly flat surfaces. Another way would be to use the T-slot of the aluminum bar together with machine screws and some kind of custom clamp to hold the neck. It is still on my todo list to design such clamps.
Excellent looking jig! I'm trying to access the plans that you've made available, however, I keep receiving a "error establishing a database connection" message by using the provided link. Is there perhaps a pdf file that is accessible via email, or a different link to try? Many thanks!
By using two different profiles on each sides of the jig. This causes the aluminum extrusion to be slightly angled. The result is a tapered neck profile.
@@oscardarrell exactly. I tried to give a rough guide in an blog article I linked in the description of the video but I know it is lacking a lot of information. Maybe someday I will make a full build video of this jig.
Hello On Guitars. Beautiful design and thanks for the plans. Can you tell us how do you determinate center line on aluminium construction profile where neck is placed? Guitar blank neck center line must be parallel with router bit, right?
You are welcome. Exactly, the necke center line has to be parallel with the travel axis of the router. To ensure this, I draw a reference drawing along the centerline with the thickness of the router bit. When you move the router you can clearly see, if the neck is perfectly centered. When glueing the neck onto the aluminium profile with the "painters tape" trick, I use a CA glue which has a bit of open time to be able to adjust the neck position. I use a Shinwa metal ruler with a depth stop to set up the correct distance from the outer edge of the neck heel to the outer edge of the aluminium beam. On the position where the nut is it is a little bit tricky. Because the ruler does not work that well because of the headstock transition. To be honest, at this spot I feel the distance with my fingers. Sometimes I need a second try to get it right but then it's normally good enough. It's really important to check if the distance from the router bit to the neck is the same everywhere especially when turning the aluminium beam with the neck on it to the side.
@@onguitars Thank you for the replay. I will try make one but with wood board, not aluminium beam, only because on wood board I can draw center line. I think I finally figured out (thanks to your drawing) how to properly design neck contour templates :-)
Keep me updated. I'm really interested how you interpret the design. It depends on the type of truss rod you use. Most of the times, I use MM-style with the access at the end of the heel. So even if there would be a center line, it would not help that much in this case.
Hi, I'm following your plans to build your jig. But something is missing about the fretboard. What is the thickness of the fretboad? I try to make my own profiles. I will 3d printed them. Did you use Fusion 360 for the projection? Any advices for the placement/calculation of the profiles on the aluminium profile? By the way, amazing job!
Thank you 🤗 The fretboard thickness is 6mm but the total thickness of the neck including the fretboard is more important for defining the profiles. It is 25mm. I modeled the profiles in Fusion 360, right. So my profiles are based on these 25mm. In my case, the position of the ball bearings together with the length of the aluminum profile determined the placement of the profiles. I just measured that distance. Then I placed the neck so that the ends on the heel and the headstock have equal distance to the profiles. In Fusion you start drawing the target neck profile on the 0 fret and around the 16th fret. Then extent the lines of the fretboard edged so they intersect the position of the profiles. I also draw a line from the centers of the profile arcs and exten this as well. The result will be that you have intersection points on the projection plane defining the width on one defining the depth. Use these as starting points to draw a manual interpolation of the two profiles. I hope this helps. Keep me updated on your progress.
I also used a spokeshave before changing my workflow. I like the repeatability of different neck shapes I can achieve with this jig more easily. I think when doing a couple of necks in a row it really is a time-saver. But it's totally fine if you prefer hand tools for this task. Works great as well and I know many builders doing it exactly that way.
I like walnut for building necks. Weight and hardness is very similar to maple but it has a very different feel with more grip. And I love the look of walnut wood.
@@onguitars +1 on that. i have been building walnut necks for 10 years now and they have something else beautiful than standard maple etc. Nice jig mate!
