Walnut Neck Through Six Build

[Stratton]

Decided to try making a neckthrough superstrat style guitar... with 26 frets! I have a pretty much unlimited supply of walnut and maple so I picked out a few pieces yesterday...

I never get tired of that little loop in the grain on the right piece. I made both sides WAY bigger than I need so I have plenty of room to work with. I glued up the neck pieces so hopefully I'll start working with them soon.

Today I did a concept drawing while bored in school, but I ran out of space on the body side so had to squeeze it a bit. Poor planning on my part

And just now I laid out the fretboard. I apologize for the quality of this pic.

So far for hardware here's what I'm thinking:

EMG 81/85 pickup set
Hipshot fixed .125" bridge
Hipshot open gear tuners
StewMac Hot Rod truss rod

Because I'm broke it might be a little before I can get some of this stuff, but I think this build will turn out pretty good.

Should I do walnut binding on the sides of the fretboard? I like the look of unbound fretboards but since I gotta get a pair of tang nippers some time I was thinking of doing it now.

 

[EQGuitars]

I'm a huge fan of the Hipshot hardware. Walnut binding would also look gorgeous and contrast nicely against the both the maple sides of the neck and fretboard but I will say that binding is way trickier than it seems. One way to make it easier for yourself (especially if you're only using it on the fretboard) is to trim the fretboard down on each side, so that adding the binding brings it back to full width. That way you can do all of the binding work before you install the fretboard.

 

[Stratton]

Thanks for sharing that way, do I put the frets in after doing that by nipping the tangs? I did binding once before but it was made of plastic and the build had nibs instead of nipped tangs. I just got all the fret ends flush with the sides using a belt sander and superglued the binding on the sides when I did that build.

I'm planning on doing maple binding around the body, and maybe the headstock as it'll have a thin piece of walnut on the face of it. That shouldn't be difficult with my rabbet bit though.

 

[EQGuitars]

Happy to help! With wood binding you can either nip the tang and glue the ends down, or saw right through the binding and treat it like the rest of the fretboard. It all depends on the look you're going for.

It looks like you're doing an arm bevel. Is the edge of the bevel going to be bound too? These things change the way you would want to approach the binding routs on the body, especially with wood binding since you would need to steam it into the compound curve prior to installation.

 

[skeels]

I love watching builds!

Also, where do you get this "unlimited" supply of walnut!?!

 

[Navid]

Lucky bastard, my limited supply of wood consists in balsa wood.

 

[Stratton]

I love watching builds!

Also, where do you get this "unlimited" supply of walnut!?!

My dad works at a place that makes cabinets, it's pretty helpful because I can use machines there on weekends too.

Happy to help! With wood binding you can either nip the tang and glue the ends down, or saw right through the binding and treat it like the rest of the fretboard. It all depends on the look you're going for.

It looks like you're doing an arm bevel. Is the edge of the bevel going to be bound too? These things change the way you would want to approach the binding routs on the body, especially with wood binding since you would need to steam it into the compound curve prior to installation.

Alright I'll probably be doing the nipped way for this build.

And it will be beveled, can I still use a handheld router with 1/4" rabbet bit to route it out?

 

[Brohoodofsteel75]

My dad works at a place that makes cabinets, it's pretty helpful because I can use machines there on weekends too.



Alright I'll probably be doing the nipped way for this build.

And it will be beveled, can I still use a handheld router with 1/4" rabbet bit to route it out?

Just make sure that the wood is dry. I've seen enough builds that go to shit because of moisture content.

 

[Stratton]

Alright I was on vacation last weekend but today I got some more work done on this thing.

I planed the 6 wing pieces down to 15mm using this beast of a thickness sander. It works extremely slowly and is rather temperamental but the fact that it's accurate to 0.1mm and doesn't leave any machining marks makes up for that.

And here are the glued up sides, they're just a little over 1.75in right now so I have room to sand some more later. Sorry that this pic came out blurry.

And I cut out the fretboard. Hopefully I'll be able to slot it and put the abalone dots in (real, not that plastic crap) later this week. I'm going to glue .09in walnut binding to the sides and nip the fret tangs.

And I also Squared one side of the neck blank. It looks like it's very slightly curved to the left though. hopefully that'll be cut out but if not I can put some really heavy stuff on it for a while to bend it straight.

I'll hopefully do some more work on the fretboard sometime this week and on the rest this Saturday.