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I was thinking about making a laminated neck with around 8 slices of wood. (All the same wood / color).
If you have made a laminated neck, is grain direction a big problem ? I can just see the plane snagging somewhere and ripping out a chunk.
I am just wondering if I would have to do it the way I did my first neck, using nothing but a rasp (takes a loooong time).

I've never used a spokeshave to carve a neck so I don't know. I always use a rasp and file followed by sandpaper and or scraper. It doesn't seem to take too long. Then again, I love carving necks. Once I took a neck blank to carve on vacation but forgot most of my tools. I carved the whole thing with scrappers. THAT took a long time but what else was I going to do sitting by the lake?

I would think you will be okay with whatever method you use to carve. After all you are always going to have to be mindfull of changing grain direction on necks at the heel and peghead. When you start, you have a lot of wood to remove so you will get a feeling for how much tearout you will be dealing with. You may just end up moving to the rasp a bit earlier in the process. . .

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

I've done a couple of laminated Mahogany necks & had minimal issues with using a spokeshave - just don't take too heavy of a cut. The wood was flat sawn with the grain lines almost parallel to the faces so that it became quartersawn after glue up.

For rasping this has made the initial roughing go a lot fasterThat's the 12" 8-grain cabinet rasp from The Best Things next to a Nicholson #49.

Kevin Looker

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.