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I was wondering what others here on the forum do to support their necks while leveling frets. I usually get it one way or another but not without some trail and error. I use the leveling beams from Stewmac as well as radius blocks and a couple shorter homemade beams. Those Stewmac beams are heavy!

The problem is the deflection of the neck while the beam is passing over the frets. This is mainly an issue on neck through and set neck guitars. I've tried the rolling neck cradle and stacking enough objects under the body to bring it level in hopes that the cradle will hug the neck and not let it deflect while it's being leveled. My straight edge will tell me everything is straight and level but then I bring the guitar to the playing position and recheck only to find something out of whack. Usually the bass side, for some reason. Of course, I'm adjusting the neck straight once it's in position prior to leveling.

After stringing it up and playing, I'll take notes and work out the problem areas. Not a huge deal but I wish there were a way to get it on the first try.

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"I'm not going to say that perfection has never been achieved. However, if it has, it probably went unnoticed due to it's lack of character."

I recently built a small bench, just for this job. It incorporates a guitar body cradle which clamps down with a couple of over-centre bench clamps. The guitar is held firmly in the cradle with two rubber straps with short lengthwise slits near the ends, (I used strips of inner tube) criss crossing the instrument body & hooked over the up/down adjustable side support bolts on the cradle. (protective cover placed over body before putting on the straps)
The peghead is held in place with an up/down adjustable bracket which is clamped to the end of the bench.
Along the centre line of the bench top I embedded several 1/2" nuts. Into these nuts, I wind 2 or 3 redi-rod (all thread) supports with cork lined wooden neck supports on top.
Clamp the guitar in the fixture, centre the neck over the supports, clamp down the cradle, clamp the peghead in place & raise the threaded rods to support the neck.
I find this rig particularly useful doing re-frets where there is no adjustable truss rod.
After some pre-measuring (both under string tension & slack) I can accurately crank in the amount of relief I want before levelling the board.
Long & flexible necked instruments like basses & bouzoukis are much easier to deal with when well supported. I will sometimes use 4 support rods on an electric bass.
It's a bit of a job building the bench, but the improvement in speed & accuracy made the investment well worthwhile for me.
You don't have to build a special bench, if you don't want to. I used this system on one of my workbenches for years before I built the dedicated bench. With the smaller bench, I can access the neck from both sides, which is a big improvement.
Hope this helps...
Dan

i have only ever made bolt on necks. i bolt the neck heel to a long wooden slab about the same length as the neck. then i put shims under the headstock, and that keeps the neck from flexing during the truing/radiusing/fretting process.
probably a no-brainer but i figured i'd post it anyway. i also like to flip the neck 180 degrees every so often, to make sure my sanding process is "evened out" somewhet with regards to bass side/treble side

If the neck is deflecting as the beam passes over it, it sounds like you're using a ton of pressure. That's really not necessary, as the weight of the tool should be enough. I level with an old plane body(fairly heavy) with sandpaper on the sole, and use a paint roller refill as a rest, and have no problems with deflection.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Me use to use one of them neck braces that the paramedics and Dr.s give you for whip lash
but it really didn't help much.

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Audiences and dispensations on Thursdays ~ by appointment only.


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Much to the contrary, I actually hold the beam firmly and control the pressure in an effort to keep the weight of the beam from bending the neck.

Actually, I began crowning a neck today that I leveled a few days back. I checked it with a straight edge and it needed some tension probably due to the fact that it was no longer in my makeshift cradle. It was perfectly level. Maybe it wasn't just the bass side that had relief.

That would mean I got this one on the first shot.

Regardless, I still want to hear other people's methods as I feel like mine is still too hit or miss for my taste.

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"I'm not going to say that perfection has never been achieved. However, if it has, it probably went unnoticed due to it's lack of character."

I've used this. It's is a great idea and works very well. A home built version of the SM unit. Being basically lazy I didn't make one. I use my cradle that holds my guitars when cutting the binding rabbits. I have a 4x6 block of wood with an old strap on ankle weight supporting the neck. Seems to work OK. You can adjust the cradle to get the neck to sit flat.

Did you tighten the truss rod? The neck should be dead straight while leveling. If you're able to bend the neck and the truss rod then you're using too much pressure.

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What kind of truss rods are you putting in your guitars? I need to find that source. How much relief are you sanding into them that would require so much rod tension to where they don't flex under the weight of a leveling beam?

A truss rod doesn't prevent the neck from flexing. It simply counteracts string tension. I learned this from messing around with a home built version of the Erlewine neck jig. Without the support rods in place, the slightest bit of pressure from your finger will change the reading on the dial indicators. At first I thought this jig was the way to go for all of my neck/fret work but the popular opinion seemed to be that it was only necessary for problem necks and ones without adjustable rods.

I guess the reason for my question is more to decipher the theory behind supporting the neck. It seems like you find 101 people that tell you their way of doing something but they all skip telling you their reasoning for doing it in the first place.

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"I'm not going to say that perfection has never been achieved. However, if it has, it probably went unnoticed due to it's lack of character."