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With my new neck and neckblock assembly in hand and some disappointment in how the tail block came out in my OM, I was wondering how many of you very gently have a radius in your gluing side of the blocks? It would be very slight, but some little bit of curve seems to exist on most drawings and in molds. Thanks.

Not sure what you mean, but I bevel he gluing surfaces of my end block to be the same width as the linings. Where the sides are glued to the blocks should follow the curve of the mold, and the neck block makes full contact with the back and the top.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

Laurent-you are talking about my quandry. I looked through several of my books and they don't mention fitting the neck or tail blocks to the minimal curve that remains there at those points. What I am going to do is put some PSA sandpaper in the mold at the positions of the blocks and work my block gluing surfaces to fit what actually is present there. On my OM for some reason the flat surface is really telegraphing at the tail-all of a sudden, there is this 3 inch very flat place on the bottom of the body. I must have shaped these in the past but my memory problems may be popping up here. It can be embarrassing at times. Thanks, mt

Thanks, Todd. I am very comfortable with my planes. So, your method is one I could use. Great pictures. mt

I always cringe when I see that really flat area at the neck and tail, it's worth getting the good fit.

Here's an idea I stole from Harry Fleishman, using a disk sander with a little fence in front of it so I can sand to a pattern. Then you need a pattern for the tail and neck ends of each body shape you want to make. It takes a while initially, but once it's set up it's really quick and accurate.



Todd's solution is much more elegant, though, and if I wasn't already set up this way with the sander it's probably how I would do it.

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Yes, I keep my little bronze, non-adjustable low-angle LN in my apron pocket- those little block planes just are so handy for so many things. And, my "low angle" doesn't seem to care much about the "angle." I do keep it quite sharp, though.

I sure cannot fault the "cool" factor in that jig.

It is strange what this memory deal attacks and what it leaves alone. It took me two days of mental meandering to remember the term "variac,
even though I actually looked at them in my basement shop. Then about 48 hours later, it just popped to the "mental surface." Embarrassing and frustrating. Oh, and I can still recall the taste of paste.<G> Now, that is really useful!

I use a block plane to start it off then finish it with a radiused sanding block. For one of my designs both the head and tail block are radiused. I like the look of it.

I only need the tail-block but I curve it with the spindle-sander with the tail-block carpet-taped to a square 4X4 block.

Bob

This is my version of Harry's / Jonathan's jig.... easy to make & exchange templates, it gets the block very close in a hurry.

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Dave
Milton, ON

My memory deficit is not supposed to get worse-which is very good if the doctors are right. I do worry that it might be a bad start for what many older folks experience with memory, "just because."

Thanks to all for the excellent and helpful responses.

I agree.

However, you will re-define the meaning of PITA the first time you have to fit a bolt-on-style neck to a very rounded body.
I thought I had that operation pretty well worked-out until a few days ago when I was mating the neck to a Rodriguez-shape classical guitar body.


That traditional Spanish construction style is making more sense now!

Cheers
John

It's really not that bad if you have a radius block though. If you have a radius block then you can make it's opposite with a block of mahogany or something. This is the convex sanding block to radius the but joint for a perfect fit in very little time especially if you start the process with a chisel. Some manufacturers will just make their heals sort of hollowed out so only the very edge touches the sides. I like using the blocks because they make a perfect flush fit.

One of the reasons I went with a Gibson/Guild heel shape was the realization that on a slope shoulder dread there is more curve in the neck block/heel area than on some guitars. As I thought about posting this question, I realized that the subtle continuing arc is what draws my eye to the shape. And, I planned to have a little wider glue contact area between heel and body for the 12 string tension-maybe 1/4"flossed area running down each side of the heel, rather than the 1/8th"+ I have so often seen. I could be dead wrong on that thinking.Are many of you using a dry fit M & T bolt-on? I was thinking about the many 12 strings I have seen that have the rotational top cracks along the fretboard tongue. I know some of that is attributable to weak or poorly designed bracing in the upper bout, too. Now that I type this out, I have this thought that the wider heel will make for a more difficult fit-I need more advice here.

Some preference came from the fact that I have owned Guilds about 7 to 1 over Martins( how I wish I had kept that Martin-used the $$ for my brand new Marlin Duplicarver). I am so embarrassed by the flat on my OM that I have seriously given thought to chiseling off the present tail-block, but that build has sat that way for a year or two while I tried to piece together my life to some semblance of mental and physical normalcy. I think the rib wood at that tail has taken quite a set and would be difficult to persuade into a more elegant arc now.

Thanks for the patience of all.

I want to make sure that I don't carry that same error forward on this 12 string build. As nice as the Chris Steinert( hana lei moon) neck and block are, I want to build up to the quality that the neck offers.

Bumped- because it has photos of a Chris Steinert/ Hanalei Moon Guitars CNC neck.