foreright
Well-Known Member
Hi all, just in the final planning stages of a 6-string headless build and I have a question regarding neck angle and as to whether I need one or not. I'm planning for this to be a set neck design and because it's a single (bridge) pickup design I can make the tenon very long to make this work. Thus I have no adjustability in the neck angle once it's glued and hence the question I have built set-neck instruments before but those were pretty clear cut as to whether the neck needed to be angled or not.
In this case, I have a headless bridge that I'm planning to recess by approx. 5mm. The minimum height of the saddles appears to be (and I'll measure this absolutely accurately before final decision...) a hair over 14mm so the string is going to sit a fraction over 9mm above the surface at lowest. My fingerboard is 7mm thick and the fretwire I'm using is 1.2mm high.
So that means that there's an approx. 1.5mm difference between the bridge height and the thickness of the fretboard+frets. As I see it, there's two approaches here:
[1] Raise the entire neck by 1.5mm but keep it level with the body. This is going to be easiest to build I think as I don't have to worry about either angling the back of the neck or angling the pocket or:
[2] Angle the neck back (ie. angle the back of the neck or the pocket) by approx. 0.5 degrees. I think this will look better as I've seen instruments with a (very!) raised neck and it's pretty ugly.
Is there any particular reason to favour either approach or does it just come down to my preference?
In this case, I have a headless bridge that I'm planning to recess by approx. 5mm. The minimum height of the saddles appears to be (and I'll measure this absolutely accurately before final decision...) a hair over 14mm so the string is going to sit a fraction over 9mm above the surface at lowest. My fingerboard is 7mm thick and the fretwire I'm using is 1.2mm high.
So that means that there's an approx. 1.5mm difference between the bridge height and the thickness of the fretboard+frets. As I see it, there's two approaches here:
[1] Raise the entire neck by 1.5mm but keep it level with the body. This is going to be easiest to build I think as I don't have to worry about either angling the back of the neck or angling the pocket or:
[2] Angle the neck back (ie. angle the back of the neck or the pocket) by approx. 0.5 degrees. I think this will look better as I've seen instruments with a (very!) raised neck and it's pretty ugly.
Is there any particular reason to favour either approach or does it just come down to my preference?