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Oops. I accidentally posted this in the CNC and lutherie section. I deleted that post, so if you're reading this for a second time, sorry.



When picking out which woods I want to make my next guitar neck out of, which will be my first laminated neck, I was struck with a thought.

Why not make the middle piece of the laminate the same width as the truss rod, and the thickness the desired depth of the truss rod. This will eliminate the need to route the channel. (Currently I am chiseling out my channels.) The only down side I can see in this plan is it would require spacers to be put into the gap during glue up. Other than that A spacer would have to be glued in for the length of the channel that the rod is not occupying.

I would likely use five pieces of wood for the neck. The three inter pieces would be the same thickness and contrasting, the two other pieces would give me my desired width, and would be of the same time of wood as the center piece.

Has any attempted to do this? If so, how has it worked for you?

Can anyone picture any reason not to do this? Or other hardships that could result out of this that I may be missing?

I've thought the same thing.
The only down side I can think of is putting a shear force on the glue joint.

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Say what you do, Do what you say.

It would be easier to cut the channel than to try and get the lamination in the right plase.IMHO

I thought of it and came to the same conclusions as above.

Might be a bigger hassle than you think ----- set up a good slotting process, if you plan to stay with the hobby it will get a lot of use.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

40$ dado set. Can't believe I used to use a normal tablesaw blade and just nudged it until it was right. Good for truss rod slots and x brace lap joints. takes all off ten seconds to cut the truss rod slot.

I am also in the camp of 'it might be more trouble than cutting a channel after the fact'.

A lot depends on how you plan to do the laminate. I usually take a piece of wood, cut it off at 15 degrees, glue the piece back on to form the scarf joint turned down 15 degrees, glue on the heel caps and then slice it down the middle. I glue it back together with the laminates in the middle. It is a little tricky getting all of the wood lined up.

If you were to allow for the truss rod you would have to notch the center piece since the rod only goes from the neck block to about the 1st fret or maybe to the nut. I suppose you could do it using a filler strip wrapped in wax paper so the glue wouldn't stick but it might be easier to cut the channel later using a router table. But then if you had a router table I suppose you would just do it that way!

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

More work than it's worth IMHO. I cut the slot with a 7 1/4" Diablo blade in the table saw. Then a small bit of chisel work for the fat end. Finally clean the bottom of the slot out with a miniature router plane. Done. Takes about 10 minutes.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I pinch the heel of the neck in a bench vise, then use a Bosch Colt with an edge guide and 1/4" bit. Pretty straight forward job.
I can't imagine doing a multi piece glue-up so accurately that you won't need to run the neck over a jointer - at which point you mess up the depth of the slot you've left. Sounds like a complicated way to go about this.

The more I think about it, the more I agree with everyone who pointed out that the glue up being a lot more work than just routing/cutting a table saw. And likely more work than chiseling out like I am currently doing.