Necks, necks, necks

[Bob Connor]

We've just started a flurry of neck making.

The aim is to have a pile of neck blanks ready to go, so as to speed up turn around time from start to finish of an instrument.

And by partially carving the necks we can release stresses that may be in the timber so that we don't get any warping or twisting surprises after the instrument is finished. We do the intial roughing out with a Black and Decker Power File - takes about 15 minutes. Then finish off with rasps and files.

All of our necks are one piece so there are no scarf joints or stacked heels. We did build some that were jointed but weren't comfortable with the look so went back to the more expensive (and wasteful) one piece( they are laminated actually so there can be up to 5 pieces glued together to make up the neck.

The first stage is to get one true side on the jointer and then run it through the thicknesser to ensure both sides are square. The run through the wide belt sander in case there is any snipe from the thicknesser.

Here's a blank being glued. The black stuff is Vulcanised Paper (Fish Paper)



This is what it looks like after coming out of the clamps. Mahogany with a Padauk centre strip. The Mahog is plantation stuff from Fiji.



On Friday Dave and I went to Australian Furniture Timbers and bought some more neck stock. The ones on the right are Fijian Mahogany and the others are Queensland Maple (Flindersia brayleyana). The Maple is slightly heavier on average than Mahogany - 575 Kg/cu metre as opposed to 500 Kg/cu metre for mahog.



Here's a closeup of the two.



Here's a pic of some of the blanks that are ready to have truss rod slots roted in them. After the others are glued there'll be around 20 neck blanks waiting for the next body to be built. There's a mixture of 25.4" and 24.9" scale lengths.



Some of the mahogany was unsuitable due to knots etc so these got processed into neck blocks. Here's what was left over, edge routed and ready to be finish sanded and ready for glueing to rims. The other pile is Engelmann Spruce being prepared for tail blocks. These are from a packing box from Graham Hein. I'm also going to laminate some of this Engelmann to try and make an ultra light neck block.



There was also some leftovers from the Mahog neck blanks so these'll get processed into kerfed linings.



So there wasn't too much wastage at all which is always a problem when processing from raw lumber.

Thanks for looking.

Bob

[BillyT]

A day in the life of the Connor Guitar Production facility!!

Your knocking them out aren't you! Letting the neck sit for a while helps deal with stress relief I believe also!

[Hesh1956]

Geeze Bob why don't you just buy CNC'd necks.........

JUST KIDDING!!!!!!!

Your production activities look mighty fine.

[Tom Morici]

Bob,
Making multiple parts not only saves time with setups, but as you say
allows the neck blanks to season better that way. And now we know we will see at least 20 more guitars from you.

Tom

[Allen]

Hey Bob, I just saw this on ebay, and thought of you...well actually I thought of myself first, but then had to think of where the hell I would put it.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... SS:US:1123

Might make cranking out those necks a whole lot easier.

[Arnt]

I also make up a lot of rough cut necks, and then store them until needed. Here’s an older picture, I think these necks have now been put on bodies. I make two piece necks because much of the 2â€

[Serge]

Nice production there Bob, wow, that shop of yours is quite busy!

[Dennis Leahy]

I think laminated "one-piece" necks are great. I think Arnt's idea (that he posted once on another forum) of cutting the individual pieces and storing them, then later gluing up the pieces as needed, is a good idea. One reason I like it is because it would be hard for me to imagine, in advance, which wood I might want to use for a "stripe." I guess that would not matter once you had a "model" of guitar in a specific combination of woods, but for one-at-a-time hand builders, it would leave the most flexibility to leave disassembled parts until you know what you want to use.

I see that Bob has various different woods as stripes. Bob, I'm guessing that these necks (or at least half of each sandwich) are for specific guitars. Is that right? Or have you just made some cool combos that should work well in a variety of situations?

Dennis

[Bob Connor]

Dennis

Most of them are generic necks.

Maple and Blackwood strips seem to be fairly neutral and fit in with most of the instruments we are building.

We will make specific necks if we feel the instrument warrants it. (stand by for a Tiger Myrtle neck early in the new year )

The Myrtle OM we did e few months back had a Myrtle neck with a wide Jarrah centre laminate.

We also have a couple of Black Heart Sassafras guitars on the go so they are getting Sassafras necks.

I'm not sure how the Maple and Sassafras necks will go but this is a good opportunity to test it's suitability for neck wood. They should be fine and will hopefully provide a local alternative to Mahogany.

Bob

[Bob Connor]

Hey Bob, I just saw this on ebay, and thought of you...well actually I thought of myself first, but then had to think of where the hell I would put it.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... SS:US:1123

Might make cranking out those necks a whole lot easier.

That's just up the road a bit in Ballarat Allen but unfortunately the only way it'd fit into the shed would be if we got rid of "Le Fridge".

And that simply won't happen.

[Dave Anderson]

Wow! I wish I had some of that "Hog" Arnt.
Nice stash....
Nice blanks too Bob!