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Is there a tutorial on the forum covering the general preparation for a laminated neck blank?
Anyone who would like to share their methods here would be equally welcome.
Thx

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Wake up and smell the rosewood!

I've done several I prefer vertical laminations favored by John Arnold, instead of laminating up a billet, cutting a scarf joint for the headstock and stacking up some kind of heel.

Im not entirely clear.
So instead of glueing up a large billet, you use small pieces in a vertical orientation then cut a scarf and stack a heel in the traditional manner?

Are there a recommended number of lams? Too many or too little?
What are the better choices of wood species to use?
Should it be reinforced?

thanks

_________________
Wake up and smell the rosewood!

I think the most common way to build a laminated neck is to use 3 lams of 3/4" lumber. Probably because flat sawn 3/4" is readily available at almost any lumber source. Frankly, it is usually much easier to find a 4"-5" flat sawn board that is roughly 2' long than one 3" wide quarter sawn board that is 4' long. You end up with 2-1/4" which works for most situation. Each lam is shaped like the shadow of a neck -- headstock, shaft and heel all in one. Usually two additional short pieces laminated to the headstock to give you the requisite width there.

This, of course, invites placing veneers or thin 1/4" stock in between the lams. Again, probably due to easily available dimensions in lumber (here in the US, at least). I am sure that the "5-lam" necks of Gibson's high end guitars started as a practical desire to add width to existing 3/4" laminations to get a slightly wider neck blank. Now they are considered in some circles to be "upgrades".

Beyond that... there are a thousand ways to skin this cat! I am constantly seeing new techniques including one of the 2016 challenge threads where they are using the lam shapes to create a slotted (or something, not really sure!) headstock. You could probably laminate 100 sheets of veneer in all different species and end up with a useable neck if you wanted to.

I would suggest that you make one in the more traditional 3 lam design. See if you like that better than cutting a scarf and stacking a heel from one long narrow piece. Then go nuts from there!

What he said. ^^^^

Lots of ways to do this and a lot depends on the look you are after and the wood you want to use. I kind of like using flat sawn boards and laminating them on end. I like to cut out the shape of the shaft and heel then do a scarf joint after I laminate (using veneers on the front and back of the peghead) if I have a small board. The "L" shapes nest better than a full neck side profile. I'm not a big fan of having the center lam 3/4" wide. With the neck taper, it makes the center lam look too heavy to my eye at the nut end. I like to try to use thicker stock for the outer laminations and thin down the center. Another way is to do a 5 peice neck with the three middle lams being narrower than the outside lam. The very center lamination cbe the same wood as the outside and you end up with two thin stripes instead of one heavy one. Do an image search for laminated guitar neck and you will get plenty of ideas.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

Thanks everyone.
I guess the sticky point for me is for example, no mater how many lams I decide on, what is the proper way to surface them before being glued together? Plane, route, sand, etc.

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Wake up and smell the rosewood!

A jointer is nice, a sharp #4 or #5 will do.

Continued thanks...
And continued questions... : )

Are there any considerations when combining a slotted peghead with a laminated neck?

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Wake up and smell the rosewood!

I've done several by laminating 8/4 flat sawn stock with a center laminate of contrasting veneer. I don't like wide center laminates. The 8/4 stock is prepped on the jointer as noted above then glue and clamp. Slotted peg head is done the same as on a one- piece neck.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Use a plane to get a fresh surface for gluing. With sand paper you tend to round off the edges, well I do anyway.

Of course a drum sander or planer will get the job done fast if you have it.

No pictures? Well how about a bad one?



A small parlor, did a three piece neck. I agree that a 3/4" center lamination does look heavy. Would go for a 5 piece next time.

We use flat sawn material and end up with a stack about 2 1/2" - 3" thick. Our laminated necks sometimes have ears glued to the head stock (like J200s). The blank ends up being about 25" x 4" we have uses for the cut out waste so that is not an issue. I suppose a 25" x 6" could be glued up so two neck could be made, but most of our orders are one of a kind. We surface the material on our 6" power jointer and 10" drum sander.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I just looked through the pictures of neck blanks I happen to have on my phone. There were 4 and none were made the same way:

This one was a guitar neck with a scarf joint and staked heel. It was sawn open and laminated with a maple center strip.


This one was a mandolin. The three lams were cut out with the shape of the heel and shaft (to use the 1 small maple board I had). After it was laminated, I did the scarf joint.


An ukulele this time. Thick enough for the shallow heel depth but not the laminations. The main shaft was split and the laminations had stacked heels then the whole thing got scarfed after being laminated.


This one, another guitar, had a block heel and was split then laminated after the scarf joint was done.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

I have laminated the whole neck or... A scarf joint with stacked heel with only the center portion laminated...

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Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com

Ooh, I love that last one!

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

Nice!
Lots to take in.
One reason why I'm asking is that I have a lot of cherry that I would like to use; thought cherry/maple would look nice. Was also questioning whether maple was stable enough by itself.
Should some thought be put into the centre laminates if they are running up and through the slotted peghead?
Thanks gents.

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Wake up and smell the rosewood!

To speed up our laminated neck assembly we set up this clamping station.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

This is a great thread, I want to try building a laminated neck in the future...in fact I was re-sawing some walnut and maple yesterday for my next project with exactly that in mind.

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Blog on Making Stuff: http://www.McGlynnOnMaking.com

This one is 11 piece.
The central maple piece is one piece, around 1/2" thick, anything wider is too much for my taste.
The veneers are wenge, and the outer sections sapelle.
These outer sections were constructed first, the heel area being stacked, and the head end scarfed.
Then these outer sections were glued up before sandwiched the veneer and maple between them.
I used this method of construction for strength at the headstock end, because the client did not want a back veneer on the headstock.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

African mahogany, padauk, maple veneer (hard to see) and wenge.

Alex


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Here's something a little different, it's the neck for my challenge entry.


The neck is walnut with maple accent stripes. The headstock is 3/4" thick and is scarf joined to the outside laminates.
There's more construction photos in the challenge thread, as well as plans, if anyone is interested.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

Beautiful neck laminations! I have made stack-laminated heels, but I prefer to laminate everything from pieces with vertically oriented grain. Here's a five-ply tenor banjo neck and a five-ply archtop guitar neck.

Gregorio,
Several of us are trying to show you that you can cut several laminates out of a flat sawn board. Then, when you rotate them and glue them together, you have a vertical grain neck blank.

Thanks very much everyone.
I am going to rifle through some wood this weekend so find some flatsawn material.

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Wake up and smell the rosewood!

I used a strip of flame maple. I think I surfaced all the sides in the drum sander. Although, be aware a small amount of "snipe" at the ends.


anticipating that Ed would ask this question; If you laminate several pieces of flat sawn together, it becomes quarter-sawn in the orientation that you want it to be. Usually you would want quarter-sawn material if you were doing a stacked heel and a scarf joint.

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Pat