Official Luthiers Forum!

I apologize if this has been covered already in another thread but my attempts to search have come up inconclusive. Is there a resource here or anywhere else online (or even in print) that features a tutorial on making a neck blank from layers of flatsawn tone woods?

Find a copy of Bob Benedetto's book (making an Archtop Guitar).... some libraries have it .... several pages relevent. Or google "laminated neck tutorial" some useful stuff there (eg http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/neck.htm )
Basically, you first plan the lams you need (ref trussrod, cf bars etc), then mill stock to suit, then glue (either "neck shaped" pieces or rectangular......I use about 5" x 26" lams & get 2 necks plus "ears" and fingerboard extensions from the glue up.)

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Dave
Milton, ON

I just finished my 1st laminated neck, I basically did as the Bob Benedetto's book suggests and I am quite happy with the result.





Fred

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Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/FE-Tellier-Guitars/163451547003866

I'm still surprised that more luthier don't use vacuum bags as glue-up for stack gluing. Here are two basic sites and there are all kinds of other references.

http://www.westsystem.com/ss/assets/How ... niques.pdf

http://www.veneersupplies.com/pages/DIY ... Press.html

I have found that to get the best clamping action, the cheapest way to do this in the bag is to wrap your material in nylon or other (window) screen material that is available from big box stores (it's cheap and it goes a long way and when you have squeeze out it tends to stick to whatever it is close to and this material tears and cleans up well). To hold you material together it is also easier to wrap stapping tape in reverse. You probably want to consider another glue other than PVA (titebond -elmers) in the bag because we have found that it doesn't setup well with out oxygen. We personally use powder/water mix glues especially for vacuum bags. We have not been able to tell that it effects neck quality or tap tone. If you must keep things from moving totally you can always use a staple cut off for an index lock and then trim with saw.

There is also a manual clamping system that works well for clamping material up to 4" thick and up to 43"-49" tall ( you can do much less ) and as long as you have clamps enough. I would highly recommend this if you are stack gluing large amounts of material. You can also leave blank areas in-between the stack and only glue in 4-5" increments but use all 43" if you like so approximately 6 blanks can be done in one glue up. We have used this system for over 20 years and it does a great job. These units do sometimes come available used. We have and use 3 different stations of these regularly.

http://www.amazon.com/Plano-PC-2-43-Inc ... B00002244G

We personally have done lots of stack gluing for turning and various curved moldings and several for necks and electric body veener now that we are involved as luthier.

Kevn

Here's where I learned.
The entire site is Great site by the way.


http://hoffmanguitars.com/MAKING%20THE%20NECK.htm

Dave

Wow Fred and Fillipo! Nice necks. Fillipo, I found your picture tutorial to be great and can't wait to try that on my next build. Thanks, Beth

That is a wonderful looking neck -- Very Well Done, Filippo!!!

Yeah wow Filippo, it was like you do this, then this, then this and BAZZAM! Incredible design tie-ins on completion!

Just want to make sure I understand. If I do a laminated neck, flat sawn stock is OK.

Thanks
Dave

Thanks for the pics Fred and Filippo - especially for the walkthrough Filippo.

This is my first build so I was just wondering if doing a laminated neck was any more difficult to do (as a newbie) than a stacked heel/scarf joint from a single piece of wood and cheaper because of the requirement for flatsawn vs. quartersawn woods.

Oh, and yes this would be for a flat top acoustic with South American mahogany back & sides so I'd prefer to stick with the same material for visual consistency. While an EIR strip would be nice to accentuate the trim it's not really necessary.

Bear with me, I have a few more questions:

1: is cabinet-grade flatsawn mahogany OK for using as a neck wood?

2: does it require any climatizing, especially if I buy locally?

3: fibroid was mentioned as a possibility for a thinner layer. Is that the same material as used in purfling and does it come in sheets as big as 4"x24"?

If the flat sawn stock is rotated then it becomes quarter sawn

The best way to think of it is
(((ll))) vs. some degree of ))))
Better! (..and I'd think a lot easier than stacked heel / scarf joint)
But yes. the wood should be acclimatized... just good practice.

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Dave
Milton, ON

OK, I think I'm going to seriously give this a try. Per Michael Payne's plans for the OLF MJ the widest point is 2-1/4" with the headstock being 4". I have already acquired some materials:

Mahogany, Honduran - 4/4 board measuring 3/4" x 5-1/2" x 24". Looks to be flatsawn and IIRC it was kiln dried but have no idea how long it sat in an open warehouse. I bought it and had it cut to 2' linear length at a local lumber yard so I assume it was flat sawn. It appears to be S4S though the staff had conflicting opinions of that.

East Indian Rosewood - .16" x 4.675" x 32-7/8" unbent side which I was going to cut up into body binding strips but I figure that with a couple of passes through the drum sander I can get down to 1/8" and cut at least two lams out of.





I hope that that mahogany is suitable for laminating. I don't have the best moisture meter though so I'm going to have to let it sit for a while. In the meantime that leaves me with another 1/2" to plan for regarding the center strip. My tenon is to be 3/4" thick with 9/32" bolt holes. The center lams should all equal that 3/4" but I also have to rout out a 1/4" channel for my truss rod so I've still got some thinking/planning to do.

Am I at least heading in the right direction? Is there something else I should be accounting for?

That's 1/4 to rift sawn. Don't use it for your neck bulk. The Rose wood is 1/4rd as well. You can rip some pieces and thin them for cores but for the bulk laminates it's a no go. Cabinet grade is what you want and yes, do acclimate it to your shop for as long as you can. A week minimum a month is better a year is best.

I used the same cut of wood in what I'll show you below but I wasn't very stoked on the results. I got a great neck but not a "tone-full" neck. Flat sawn for the outers is best.

Your how to is here:

You want Flat sawn, if you can see the rays (Ribbon stripe) in your African Mahogany that's your indicator that what your using is not right. Pre clean and pre assemble your neck with your grain alternating from sheet to sheet/ laminate to laminate.


Here's the tools you need for a glue up. Use a roller, if you don't have one make sure your use a spreader to get an even layer over your laminations. I like to teach that you want enough glue that makes a lightly frosted window. (What shown is more on the window side of things, I added more glue.) Not a yellow layer of paint and not a clean window. Take your pre assembled neck stack and lay it down flat. Then flip over the outer core towards you and glue that side. Like I have shown in the pictures. After you've got your first surface with glue and your ready for the next layer just flip the next layer on top of your first piece. That way your preglue grain orientation will stay the same as you work. Think opening a book and flipping the pages toward you.



Now I corner just 2 surfaces as I go. A lot of the time my pieces are not uniform or square so I use just one end and one edge to line as I glue the other end and edge don't matter as I will have to joint everything later.


When I have larger glue ups with more laminates then just a basic neck (this neck is a 15 piece), I plan sections. I ALWAYS use a larger hardwood section in the middle as I want a hardwood to support my trussrod. You have to think of "end-weight" and laminate proportion as you design your neck. If every laminate is the same size there's no distinction between the colors. Who wants to just do the Hoffman/ Olson neck proportion? If your going to laminate why not make it your own. No offense any who posted, but I make sure I vary the thickness of my laminations to highlight my choices. Matching your neck laminates to your body and binding choices really can tie the whole guitar together.

Anyway if you have more then say, 8 laminates the viscosity of the glue as your laminating will make your laminates run away from you. So with thicker pieces, in this case the outer and center core, being the caps to my 1st section I can set it aside and work the rest of the stack. And then I can apply glue to my last piece and put the 2 sections together.



I'll place one clamp at my "edge/ end corner" and tighten it to light pressure. I'll then put my second clamp on the opposite end and tighten until it's as tight as I can get it. After that I'll go back hard clamp the first clamp. Doing it this way allows for control over the laminations as you clamp down that second clamp. Other wise things just slide around as you clamp, if you soft clamp the first clamp you can hold or slide things around to keep them straight as you clamp the second.

From there I put my next clamp in the middle of my first two clamps and then I'll middle between that and the end and then middle clamp between the remaining spaces. This gives me an even spacing all the way around.



Hope this helps.

Todd

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Todd Lunneborg
http://www.tlguitars.com/
http://www.fretboardjournal.com/

Thanks, Todd. I'll have to rethink what I'm going to do then.

Another helpful hint for laminations with lots of layers is to place an alignment hole on each end. Then you can use a loosely fitting dowel in the alignment hole when you stack the parts to constrain them from squirming around too much when you apply clamp pressure. -Just make sure the alignment dowels are in the excess material on the ends that gets trimmed off after the glue dries.

-jd

Not to hijack, but I have a question for Todd. I've been using black fiber (fish paper) much as you are using maple veneer to accent the lamination. But fiber doesn't move like wood and becomes noticeable to the touch as the seasons change, so I'm thinking of switching to veneer. Finally to my question: is the figure in the curly maple veneer you are using visible once your neck is finished? At 1/32" or thinner I wouldn't think you would be able to tell the difference between a plain or figured veneer.

Thanks,

Bob

Todd, do you have a finished neck to show?

BobK ... I dont htin it will matter much if you use fiber or wood as the thin lams .. the woods wil move at different rates for different species .. so eventually ridges appear anyway. As for thin curly veneer being seen, yes you can if the curl is intense enough - i made purf strips with two laters of curly maple centred by alternating woods - the maple was flitch matched , and you could see the curl pulse in unison in the purf lines, at 20 thou each ...

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Finished neck photo:
The neck in the build above is dead but here's what it looked like in process without Lacquer.


You can carry it over into the back of the headstock veneer:


Here's a Finished Neck, another 15 piece neck, sorry it's not as clear.



I've never used fish paper, my mantra is "Wood is Good," I buy dyed sycamore for my Black (and other colors... if I need a green or blue) veneers and yes you can see the flame in the wood; as stated above. In my .020 veneers you can still see it. It's subtle but it's there. Once you get to .015 it starts to fade, but yes, on the whole it's there.

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Todd Lunneborg
http://www.tlguitars.com/
http://www.fretboardjournal.com/

You can only generate a fraction of the ideal clamping pressure that way.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Todd, I just had a thought. Would part of this piece be suitable to build part of a quartersawn neck blank from?

Good to know on both counts. Thanks Tony.

Bob

Yeah, if you wanted to stack the heel and scarf the Headstock like Filippo has shown. That's up to you. But it's always super easy to find flat sawn wood in 3/4 stock and you can fill in the rest of your width with laminates.

I'm not a big fan of scarfing, I guess it's not "tone cool" enough for me. I like "thinking" that everything in my "tone system" is connected with little to no interruption. The things we tell ourselves, right! But Taylor recently went back to scarf joints for their headstocks and there's NO WAY I'd ever say Bob Taylor is not COOL.

Now, don't you guys all copy me and my 15 piece necks on all your guitars (my basic neck is the 7 piecer). Dig in and use up some of your sand paper and make your own signature neck laminates so Jim and Charlie won't feel copied anymore (MN Builders... I live in the land of Laminated Necks not 10,000 Lakes). That way I can sit back and watch, and get inspired.

Off to make some Dust.

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Todd Lunneborg
http://www.tlguitars.com/
http://www.fretboardjournal.com/