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I am in the process of building a Fender telecaster style electric, pretty much a copy of a early 1950's tele and I would love to have some advice regarding the neck construction. I want to build the maple neck with the truss rod routed into the back of the neck, and then place a "skunk stripe" over the truss rod channell. I'll be using a one way compression truss rod that will be adjustable at the butt of the neck.

I was informed that it would be best to route a curved channel into the neck when using a compression truss rod. Does anyone have any advice on how to do this? Could I just route a straight channel and use a curved shim?

you can see a picture of the skunk strip on the back of the neck below. But notice that it is not routed all the way back to the butt of the neck.


The adjustment nut in the back of the neck looks like this, for any of you not farmiliar with fenders (maybe the pictures weren't needed)...


My other vague question is, does anyone have any advice on how to install a truss rod in such a way? Do I just drill a hole in the butt of the neck, and if so, how do I ensure that it will line up with the truss rod channel? Will the truss rod adjustment nut shown in the second picture have to match the curvature of the truss rod channel? When I do drill the hole for the truss rod adjustment nut, do I just use a hand drill? As I don't know how I would be able to clamp the neck in order to use a drill press to put a hole in the butt of the neck. I apologize for the length and vagueness of this post , but I hope someone can help me figure this out.

Thank you so much,

Jonas

I am just in the process of doing one now.
If you send me your email I can send you a pdf of a 50's neck which shows the curve of the trussrod.
Basically you use curved rails that the router sits on and then drill in from BOTH ends using a jig to get the right angles
there are some very good tutorials for this on the TDPRI.