Building a Telecaster styled guitar neck: shaping the back of the neck

. . . and the fun begins . . . freehand shaping . . . maybe my favorite part. I started shaping my necks, the birch one first, then the maple one. The birch is my #2, so I will take what I learn from it to my #1. So far, both necks are guitar quality, so this project is headed toward being over budget by a factor of two, but who can say no to a couple of custom shop Tele's. Shaping is a do-or-die process. I used my standby 10" round/flat Nicholson rasp and a really handy four-faced rasp from Lee Valley that has since disappeared from recent catalogs. With rasps, save some money and go with quality first. You can't go wrong with either of these brands. It is important to use a jig to stabilize the neck so both sides can be worked freely and easily without imbalanced rasping from one side to the other. Like they say when carving a duck, start with a block of wood and remove anything that doesn't look like a duck. Simple enough.

I like a neck that is asymmetrical, being fuller on the lower side and thinner on the upper side under the hook of my thumb. Also, I chose to taper (thin) the neck about 3/32" as you go up the frets to the heel. The roasted maple skunk stripe blended perfectly with the lighter coloured wood in both cases. Shaping is best done a bit at a time . . . shape . . . sand . . . shelf . . . do something else for a while . . . lather, rinse, and repeat. Being over aggressive can make expensive firewood.

Building a Telecaster styled guitar neck: using hide glue to set the truss rods in the routed channel

We moved on to setting and gluing the truss rods in place with the help of a Lee Valley hide glue pot. This is a really handy gadget which made using hide glue much less onerous (read messy) than in my previous efforts.

Glue was spread on the maple wedge that is fitted on the truss rod, as well as on the steel ball and the sides and bottom of the channel where there is contact with the wedge. Masking tape was used on the surfaces adjacent to the channel to shield neck wood from squeezed out glue. The glue starts to gel in about a minute, so time must be used efficiently. A heat gun can be used to keep the glue pliable for another minute or so. A 1/4"(minus) strip of maple was used with screw clamps to force the wedge to the bottom of the channel. 

I fitted the roasted maple skunk stripe into my #2 (birch) neck as shown below. The strip was fitted as neatly as possible and glued with white wood glue. The glue was first mixed with very fine sanding dust sanded from a scrap of roasted maple. This paste was used so a couple of very very tiny gaps between the skunk stripe and the maple channel would fill with the paste squeeze-out.

Building a Telecaster styled guitar neck: fitting and placing the truss rod

Fitting the truss rod is a precision operation. Since our truss rod channel is routed in from the back side of the neck, strict attention must be given to the depth of the (headstock end) truss rod anchor ball. Too deep and it goes through the fret board . . . too shallow and it comes through the surface when shaping the back of the neck. We also chose to mig weld the 3/8" dia ball onto the threaded end of the truss rod, then grind the sides so that it will slide into the 1/4" wide routed channel.Since thr truss rod is 3/16" dia, there isn't very much left on the sides when the welded ball is ground down to fit in the 1/4" channel. 

To beef-up the solid surface area that the truss ball will bear on, we chose to make the maple insert (shown below). These will be hide-glued into the channel on the final fit-up.

The truss rod pushed into place (shown below). Note the string is used to enable easy removal during the fit-up. It can be seen how thin the skunk stripe will be, given that some will be removed when shaping the back of the neck. By choice, these necks will be on the thicker side at the headstock end, so the thin skunk stripe will work.   

Building a Telecaster styled guitar neck: using the radiusing jig

We set the jig up for a 7.25" radius. It performed very well. In total, we shaped the fretboards on 7 necks, ranging from the first couple that will ultimately heat the shop as firewood, to the last few that will become parts of guitars. The idea is to lead each process with the cull necks, so as to be half decently proficient by the time we get to the good ones.

 

the jig adapted for radiusing a 7.25" neck

We used a 1/2"D 1/2" shank router bit to shape the arc on the first neck. Although acceptable, we decided to change to a 3/4"D 1/2" shank bit for the remainder. The larger bit worked better. The resulting arc was very consistent, with some very minor ridging that will be removed with a 7.25" sanding block. Overall, this phase of the project exceeded expectations.

Building a Telecaster styled guitar neck: the fretboard radiusing jig

This fretboard radiusing jig is designed to use the same jig frame as the truss rod channeling jig.

Youtube of fretboard radiusing jig

Building a Telecaster styled guitar neck: bandsawing the blanks & routing the truss rod

Things are rolling along famously with the Telecaster necks. We have seven blanks in total, four are mine, and the rest are Paul's. I had two maple blanks, and I sawed the additional two out of yellow birch, which is remarkably like maple in density and general appearance. Both maple and yellow birch have a pinkish hue. From the reading I have done, birch will make a neck of similar quality to maple, but the use of maple is buoyed by tradition. Our plan is to come up with three or four (at most) good, useable necks. The lesser quality necks will become fodder to the process. Having a few to make "first cuts" on has proven to be a good idea.

YouTube video explaining the process to shape the blanks & route the truss rod channel.