Official Luthiers Forum!

I understand that this had been discussed before, and that some of us slice the blank in the middle and flip one half, to make a stronger neck. But for those of you who are knowledgeable about wood; how important is it for the neck to be made of quartersawn wood; in terms of longitudinal strength, as well as stability (shrinking/warping, espcially across the grain). Much of neck blanks that I had bought from lutherie supply houses do not appear to be truly QS as far as I can tell. I have read that for mahogany it is strong enough with or without QS and that cedar is one of the most stable woods there is, etc.
What are your thoughts? Would you use non-QS wood for neck blanks?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Kris
(I know only of CG and nothing of steel stringed guitars.)

QS. is not really important.
Runout is !
Check for it in any neck blank .
Mike

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Mike Collins

If it means anything, Goodall guitars allows necks up to 45 degrees off quarter. This means a 3"x3" blank will yield several neck shafts no matter how it was sawn . I discovered this because Goodall's shop used to be right around the block from the cabinet shop where I worked, and I once I took a pallet of neck-shaft size 'scrap' from my shop to Goodall's thinking they might salvage the close to quartered stuff for necks. To my suprise they said most all of it looked fine! It was probably 60 or 80 necks worth (glued heel style...).

Peace,
Sanaka

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...imagine there were no hypothetical situations...

I've seen more than a few vintage Martins with flat-sawn necks, mostly 17 and 18 series. Vintage Fender necks are virtually all flat-sawn, not that it means anything. Mike said it, runout is what matters.

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

When I first started building I went out and looked at hundreds of guitars to determine whether or not this issue matters. I couldn't find clearly defined patterns in the Fender, Gibson, Ibanez, Taylor necks. It did appear that Gibson and Taylor leaned toward having the main neck wood (mahogany) quartersawn but it was all over the map between 45-90 degrees. The maple necks were mostly flat sawn...in fact it appears that flat sawing is prefered when using maple for necks...though I wouldn't know why. Even so....there was the odd occasion when I saw quartersawn maple necks on Fenders and others.

From an engineering standpoint, you want the grain to run as parallel to the back of the neck as possible. That provides the stiffest possible neck for that particular piece of wood. No runout on the back of the neck. That's what you're shooting for.

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

btw....I just remembered something a guy named Lynn Ellsworth (founder of Boogie Body Guitars) told me once. He said he used to work at Fender and they used to throw out mountains of maple when sorting for maple neck wood. He said anything other than straight grain was scrap. That ought to say something about runout, I suppose.

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

I used quilted maple on the guitar I'm building right now's neck. It looks so awesome I was going to source some more. Runout must be the reason that the supplier responded that their lumber is not instrument grade.

I was going to make a laminated neck so I was looking for flatsawn so it would end up quartered when I turned it sideways. But flatsawn's stronger in maple. Should I look for quartered then? Does it even matter? I'm sure some of you will advise against using such highly figured wood for a neck. If its any difference I will be using carbon rods as well.

I always strive for quarter sawn if for anything else because of the beautiful stripe of rays you get right down the center of the neck shaft and because it helps sell a guitar

If it's flat sawn then I laminate it up to be on the safe side. I'd imagine that for an electric guitar it doesn't matter. In fact I've often wondered if a perfectly flat sawn piece would give you more control with the truss rod but that's just one of those crazy ideas and I'm not willing to test it

Thank you very much for lots of good information. I think I am able to tell if spruce of WRCedar has runout in most cases but short of splitting the wood, I am not sure if I can see if either the neck wood has R/O's. The grains do not seem to give away the presence of runout's in some cases. Any advices or thoughts on this? Thanks again.