Neck extension

[nkforster]

Many of you may use the neck extension idea that Trevor and Gerard suggest in their excellent books - Where you rout out the neck and the body and glue in a loose tenon. Well, I never really liked the routing process, and am not so keen on removing so much wood from the neck. So I came up with a way of doing it on the spindle moulder with a wedge shaped mortise and tenon. You could with a bit of thought devise a way of doing this on a router table.

Here is the mortise part:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CPbwi0IDPIW/

Here is the tenon part:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CPcMY1UDMxu/

[Dave M]

Nigel that's very interesting.

The machining is somewhat easier once set up. You also don't get the issue of end grain glueing.

It has the feel of a more secure joint - not that I suppose the GG design isn't.

When and if I get round to tackling the BOBO joint I will have to try that out.

Cheers Dave

[nkforster]

Ta Dave.

What I like about it is there is no surprises. There are times when I've routed the mortise in the neck and body together that I've lifted the jig to find it closer to one side than the other. Or something slips and I rout a little deeper than planned.

Secondly, I can cut this mortise straight after the neck tenon which I cut using the same cutters. Mind, for guitars (this is a tenor guitar) I just bought some wider stacked cutters to cut a 47mm wide mortise in one pass. That will give me around 5mm spare either side at the 14th fret.

I actually got the idea watching a guitar factory video from Canada. They go for a much deeper extension and no neck tenon which wouldn't suit how I make the block, but you get the idea:

https://youtu.be/fXGV31hOYhs?t=1029

[TallDad71]

That Godin vidéo was amazing!
I simultaneously found myself wanting all of his tools/machines and none at exactly the same time.

The controls he has for consistency were enviable. Just imagine having a machine that would radius your fingerboard at the same time a slotting and drilling. A whole day saved! A whole day saved for what though? So you can spend more time in the garden and less building guitars, not for me.

[Jack]

G'Day Nigel, love the way you've embraced and utillized that spindle moulder.
Cheers Frank

[nkforster]

G'Day Nigel, love the way you've embraced and utillized that spindle moulder.
Cheers Frank

I've not got the brains for CNC. A spindle is a great tool for those who make a living from instrument making. I use is a lot in neck making now, from cutting the head angle, thicknessing the neck rear, for the truss rod slot, for trimming the width. For cutting the extension ramp, and for the final shaping once the fretboard is on. Really quick, really versatile. And I've had far less things go wrong than with routers.

And with so many people getting rid of spindles to get a CNC, they can be picked up pretty cheaply used. I saw one last week for $450, and it was a better machine than mine. But its easy to pick one up for $1000 like mine. Main thing is to find one where you can reverse the direction of the spindle and turn your cutting block upside down so you can always cut with the grain. On some machines, its not possible.