[gavztheouch]

I have been thinking about how best to machine both sides of a guitar neck.

Are there any good resources out there that deals with neck machining?

Im thinking its a case of jigs and location pins but any references to any techniques out there would be great.

[Seitz333]

I'm in the middle of designing my neck in BOBCAD and hope to do some test machining in a few weeks. Here is the best video I have see on youtube:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FC4rrZePrQ]CNC Guitar Neck H264 Longroll Master.mov - YouTube[/ame]

Hope this helps!

Chuck

[bill south]

Nice video!
I've never thought to set up my blank for both the front and back with locater pins with back profile cut into the spoil board. I cut the front (top) then flip to premade pin holes for the back cut. Getting it off center happens often (unfortunately)! I'll try this new approach using 1 Blank in Aspire.
Thanks again.
Bill

[Seitz333]

I think I have watched every CNC guitar related video on you tube.

My body is 90% finished in the CAD design stage, I hope to cut my first test body next week. I will probably glue up some pine shelving boards for the test.

Something I did with my neck/neck pocket design which I think is a good idea??? I'm making the neck pocket so it will fit a Warmoth replacement neck, which I think is standard anyway. I ordered a standard Warmoth strat neck which should be here next week to test the fit. The fingerboard I'm making will be a 10-14 compound radius.

Would love to see some pics/vids of your guys stuff.

Chuck

[brokecase1]

I've cnc'd several telecaster style necks.
You can see how I did it at the following url
Telecaster CNC - Ready for maple - Telecaster Guitar Forum

It took me a long time to work out the tool paths. But my approach was to avoid the multitude of jigs I had seen others use. The trick is to work it out so that the neck remains suspended and supported in the work piece. When it's all done you then cut the neck free from the blank with a band saw in a few areas.

In addition I kept the rear contouring and the head as separate operations, this way I am able to make left and right hand necks by only changing just the head tool paths.

[gavztheouch]

I've cnc'd several telecaster style necks.
You can see how I did it at the following url
Telecaster CNC - Ready for maple - Telecaster Guitar Forum

It took me a long time to work out the tool paths. But my approach was to avoid the multitude of jigs I had seen others use. The trick is to work it out so that the neck remains suspended and supported in the work piece. When it's all done you then cut the neck free from the blank with a band saw in a few areas.

In addition I kept the rear contouring and the head as separate operations, this way I am able to make left and right hand necks by only changing just the head tool paths.

I like the way you managed to use a cnc router thats largest axis is smaller than the workpiece being machined.

Are you using a truss rod or carbon fibre renforcement, I guess if you are using a truss rod there would be some additional drilling to be undertaken, from the headstock into the truss channel?

Cheers

Gavin

[yackback]

I'm most interested in hearing machining strategies for necks with an angled headstock. That seems far more complicated than the fender style straight through headstock.

[brokecase1]

Gavin, I am making my truss rods from scratch. I am using 3/16" steel rods and I turn the end items on the metal lathe. But I guess I could purchase the fancy truss rods...

I cut the arched truss rod slot with a 1/4" ball nose bit.

My order of operations are to mill the back surface (first a rough and then a finish pass with a 3/8 ball nose). Without re-zeroing the machine I then cut all the way through the two sides of the fingerboard wih a 1/4" spiral up cut. I then cut the truss rod slot.

Next I shift the jig and cut the profile where it attaches to the body (but not all the way through).

I then flip the work piece over and drill the dot holes. I then glue in the dot imlay dowl material. I them cut the radiused fingerboard surface with a 3/4" ball nose. Because of the limited x travel I have to do this in two separate operations where I have to shift the jig. Likewise for the fret slots.

Lastly the neck is rotated and I cut the head surface and then profile. I can choose left or right handed at this point. I only have to do some hand contouring on the back of the neck leading into the head. This takes me about a half an hour.

The limited X travel is a pain when I'm doing the neck, I've made two "gauge rods" to make sure I have no registration errors. My machine homes on Cherry micro switches.
They have fairly good repeatability but I take the care not to re-zero at critical moments.

What other advise can I give? I do like hard maple for necks. It's only downside is that it burns easily. Practice of cheap pine. Oh yeah, if I want to do a rosewood finger board I don''t have to change any of the operations. I just start with a work piece with the rosewood board glued to slightly thinner maple. My neck work piece starts out at ~4.5" x 26". But I could glue up side sacrificial pieces if I was working with lumber I could only get in a narrow size.

Yackback - If I was doing an angled head stock like a LesPaul, I would approach it in a similar manner. The changes would be that the starting work piece would not be a flat board, and the jig would have an insertable support for the case when machining the fingerboard side.

[louieatienza]

Most all my necks are two piece; i.e. fretboard and neck. I route the trussrod channel, tuner holes, and neck profile first. I then use a fixture to carve the back of the neck. This is my strategy for Fender-style necks.

On acoustic necks with angled headstocks, I do cut the blanks on the CNC, but I do the scarf joint and shape the headsstock manually with a template. I created a jig for shaping the back of the neck manually that works pretty well (and in the process of making an updated one.)

On most my necks, I'll install frets to the fretboard FIRST before gluing to the neck wood.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeNg_Iu4jnU]DIY CNC Milling Guitar Neck, Part 1: Roughing - YouTube[/ame]
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKnWUcWvXCw]DIY CNC Milling Guitar Neck, Part 2: Finishing - YouTube[/ame]

I've reduced the time by about 20% or since these videos. This was teh first...

[CNC74]

Yo!

Why not just buy a 4th axis (Rotary A) and 3d mill it using BobCAD v25 ??

WTF make life harder than it has to be?

You could bang out a ton of these in one operation (each) and even design a heavy rake (signifigant angle) on the top of the neck with no aditional isssues.

[louieatienza]

LOL if I had a 4th axis do you think I'd do the machining this way? Plus, I despise the BobCAD/CAM layout, and workflow.

Life's not too hard still. If I had to pump out 100 of these a day maybe 4 axis would make sense. But for the few I do it works fine for me. I actually developed a 3-axis rotary pantograph for carving necks a while back, that I could easily CNC and run as 3-axis. But if I don't have the need why waste the time, money, and effort?

[John Coloccia]

I'm going through this now. Instead of extruding the headstock straight, you can either extrude vertically or you can project the angled headstock onto a horizontal plane and sweep 2 rails with a vertical line. That's how I do it in Rhino, anyhow, and I prefer the projection. It looks quite nice. Either way will get you a headstock that can be fully machined from the back, and you can confirm by checking the draft angle. I used take great pains to make my headstocks like this when I did it by hand....router table, long bits hanging off in space. VERY dangerous. Much easier to slap a pattern on the headstock and rout it out flat. Even easier to let the machine do it

I'm actually tossing together a video on my process for this, in fact, because there's not much out there for angled head stocks, and it took me a LOT of head scratching to figure out a reliable approach. Lots of little rules to follow and techniques that aren't all that obvious for beginners like me.

[MilkoLippe]

Is there anyone that tried making the entire neck in both sides inclluding truss rod cavity with a rotary?? All I can find on youtube are nacks that were made lying flat on the table. Wouldnt it be much easyer to just clamb a piece oof wood in the rotary and make it?? If there is anyone out ther doing so please post a video and share your drawings and gcode ;-) ;-)

[BuckNaked31]

It's still a two stage process no matter which way you do it. One piece necks require you to glue in a skunk stripe before you shape the back and two piece necks require you to cut the truss channel before you glue the fingerboad. Unless I don't understand how you are thinking of doing it, I don't see an advantage to cutting both sides on a rotary.

Sent from my LGMS769 using Tapatalk 2

[warrenb]

Is there anyone that tried making the entire neck in both sides inclluding truss rod cavity with a rotary?? All I can find on youtube are nacks that were made lying flat on the table. Wouldnt it be much easyer to just clamb a piece oof wood in the rotary and make it?? If there is anyone out ther doing so please post a video and share your drawings and gcode ;-) ;-)

I cut my truss rod slot on a table saw. Then mount on a 4th axis rotary and cur everything else.

[bostosh]

Reviving an old thread. when in need........

I don't like to re-invent the wheel and to this my self.
Would any of you CNC luthiers want to do three LP necks ?

The wood is on it's way and the 3D solid model is complete.