Official Luthiers Forum!

... or heart and mind in conflict...

so I'm thinking of buying one of those beautiful curly spanish cedar neck blanks for a steel-string guitar. The guitar has curly spanish cedar back and sides, and an unfigured, quartersawn spanish cedar top.

My mind tells me to get a nice quartersawn mahagony neck blank. It's cheaper and it has higher structural integrity - after all I opted for an unfigured spanish cedar top because it has higher structural integrity.

My heart tells me - get one of those curly spanish cedar ones. It'll make a beautiful, lightweight guitar.

So I have a few questions:
1) I understand that a 5-piece laminated neck is stiffer. Would it be enough to saw the blank into 3 pieces and laminate some dark wood in between them? Or do I definitely want 2 carbon fiber rods if I use curly spanish cedar.

2) I only have the 10" Craftsman bandsaw from Sears. It's fine for braces and so on, but I'm not sure if it will handle a 5-piece neck well. Does anyone of you have experience using a smaller bandsaw for necks? I know Bob would laminate and bandsaw the necks for me...I would just prefer to do it myself ...mostly for the experience.

thanks for the input,
Christian

if you have your saw tuned up fairly decent i think you'll be surprised at how much a smaller saw can handle.

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Frank

As long as there's enough clearence (height wise) for the neck to fit your bandsaw should work great as long as you take your time. I cut out several necks from blanks on a 9" bandsaw before I got a bigger one.

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I didn't mean to say it, but I meant what I said.
http://www.brackettinstruments.com/

Christian, I looked at the curly cedar neck blanks and thought they sure looked nice. I wondered myself how the spanish cedar compares in stiffness/hardness to mahogany. I'm not sure myself but will watch this thread to see what the more experienced luthiers think.

I'm also wonder how the lighter weight wood affects the balance......maybe improving the balnace.

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

You should probably reinforce it properly as some cedar can be as light as spruce (my current batch of 3 cedar necks weights only 460Kg/m3) Or in any case figure out the density first.

As for putting the pieces together, I just made my first "laminate" neck by splitting one of those light cedar blanks in two and adding two stripes of rosewood, 2.5mm thickness B&S offcuts. Went like this: saw the neck blank (optionally flip one of the halves), true the cuts up with a plane (do the candle test without cheating by pressing them)
Smooth the center pieces with a plane and glue them to each half. Next day true up the pieces *again* until passes the candle test and do a third glue session. I know it's extra work, and awkard too. I could have have smushed them all together but I wanted to make sure the joints are really perfect, no stresses, only fresh planed surfaces.

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Build log

Oops sorry I forgot the SS necks are a different animal. Given the height of the blank for 1 piece neck, it is easier to use a bandsaw indeed.

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Build log

I wouldn't worry about the stability of Spanish Cedar for necks. Martin's been using it for a couple years.

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I didn't mean to say it, but I meant what I said.
http://www.brackettinstruments.com/

Awesome, thanks for the input so far, everyone. I'm glad to hear my bandsaw will work.

just to clarify - I'm interested in the stability of curly spanish cedar as a neck wood. I've used unfigured, nicely quartered spanish cedar before without reinforcement.

cheers, Christian

I have a ryobi bt3000 table saw and a lighter dut delta 12 inch bandsaw and It could handle a nice 2" thick chunk of body blank i had. Just take it slow. Don't force it and you will be alright.