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Not doing it with jigs but moving the same direction myself so I'll be real interested to see what you come up with. I have some ideas for some fairly simple jigs but not planning on building anything immediately. I'll let you do the R&D

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Just a thought. If it's a bolt on: does the heel face have to fit the curvature of the sides? It would be a very quick affair (even with hand tools) if you could deliberately undercut the mating surface of the heel.

Filippo, check out Peter Oberg's site, I believe he has a sanding jig similar to what you describe. I've been thinking about that myself too.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Check this out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXGV31hOYhs

(go strait to 16m and 15s ...)

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Alain Moisan
Former full time builder of Acoustics, Classicals and Flamencos.
(Now building just for fun!)

I think the simplest thing to do would be to stick it in a neck tenon cutting jig that can be set for the proper neck angle and make a router guide that allows you to rout the face flush. After that undercut the center and leave about 1/8" on the edges. I think it would be very hard to get a perfect match of both radii and you don't want to be flossing the whole heel to get a fit.

As an aside I've been template sanding the heel curve and taper into my necks for a long time and it has worked great. I just shape to the area of the headstock transition and thickness the headstock on a belt sander in the usual way.





The Lee Valley drum sander support device keeps things stable and parallel.

http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.a ... at=1,42500

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

The Peter Oberg method looks to be a good way to go.
Unfortunately you can't just undercut most of the heel to fit it, it just does'nt work with the curve and the taper of the heel.
http://www.obergguitars.com/photos-work ... /shop5.htm

Alain - thanks for posting the link to the Godin video. Very interesting to see how things are done in their factory.

I use my oscillating drum sander and a jig for cutting banjo neck heels at the right angle/radius for a good fit to banjo rims. I've used a pattern sanding jig in the past, but since banjo rims are perfectly round, I've gone to using a swiveling jig set at the correct neck angle and radius. Both approaches have worked well for me. All banjo neck to rim joints are essentially butt joints with various means of fastening the two together.

I used to use a sanding drum mounted on the drill press like in the picture posted earlier (I used a big Robosander), but the oscillating sander leaves a much better surface (no distinct horizontal grooves from gunk build up on the drum). The disadvantage to this if you're pattern sanding is that on the oscillating sander, you end up having to use a larger diameter than the sanding drum follower bushing and have to compensate for this difference when making the pattern. I mounted my follower to the table insert. No big deal, but a little extra work.

At any rate, the neck joints I've gotten on my banjos have been darned near perfect every time.

I dovetail my guitar necks, so I've never tried the sander approach on those.

Dave

Fillippo -

I am also going towards a butt joint - as I like the idea of having a removable neck - and being able to complete the binding around a guitar without the neck in the way. I look forward to your post.

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It's this new idea from recent decades that everyone gets a participation award. - MUX

It seems like it would be easier to pattern shape a tighter curve to the heel so that the relief is already built in. The heel would only contact the sides along the outer two edges. Then flossing would be easy and would shape the two narrow flats along the outer edge.

Indeed, that is a dandy jig. I have been scratching my head for years trying to figure out something similar to the Godin setup (albeit on a 'one man shop' scale), but the Oberg jig really seems like it would work (and probably does since he uses it...), and could not be simpler.

Thanks for sharing that with us Jeff!

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Alain Moisan
Former full time builder of Acoustics, Classicals and Flamencos.
(Now building just for fun!)

I do this for my mandolins. I just have a jig that holds the neck keyed off the truss rod slot. The jig lets me adjust the vertical angle. Then it has a slider that just lets me butt it into spindle sander. The drum is a special one I made that is exactly 2" with the paper and is true vertically.
http://dunwellguitar.com/BuildMandolin/BuildMando10.htm
near the top of the page.

I also do a straight up butt joint for may guitars w/o M&T but I hand fit that, not having all the tooling that some production shops have

Alan D

Sanding?

Just three words Filippo...

CNC.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Come on up! Except yes, I'm from NY, but no, I don't live there anymore...

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."