Sen's Guitar Making Blog: Neck Making

2010-07-05

Neck Making

#3 Neck Making: V-joint
I was busy making lots of jigs and mould recently so haven't really got time to post any pictures.

Anyway I started on another neck for my #3 guitar though I haven't decide on the back and sides material.
I am thinking of a cypress with an Torres FE17 plantilla.

After seeing many people making a neck with a Romanillos V-joint (mortise and tenon), I decide to attempt it.
There are lots of valuable resource on the forum which I participated

Covered/Fussen V-joint (Hauser) by David Schramm (A luthier who build great Smallman style guitars and did his research on Hauser guitars) on the Delcamp forum
V-joint tutorial by Waddy Thomson (An amateur luthier who build in the Romanillos style) on the OLF
V-joint tutorial by Joshua French (A Houston-based luthier who builds in the Romanillos / Torres style with Tornavoz) on the OLF

These great resources helped me a lot on how to build a V-joint.
So I did just that.

The scribing and sawing part was easy but the fitting part was tedious.
In the end I had to saw away the 1st V tenon i did and redo it again.

Here are my steps:

Marking the head angle 9 degrees (as per David Schramm). I choose a lesser head angle than my scarf joint is because my neck black was just about 1" thick.
If I choose a steeper angle I would need a thicke neck blank.

Making the triangle 1st with pencil.
After that I went through the making with a scribing knife.

The side view. You can see the 9 degree angle on the V.

Then I use my 1" paring chisel to chisel the marking to make it more prominent and easier to saw.

Using the chisel to make the marking more prominent

Fully scribed, ready to saw.

Then I proceed to saw away the wasted area.
I use a douzuki saw (Japanased backed pull saw) to do the job as it has very thin kerf and is able to saw in a straight line.

Sawing the wasted area

From the top end

Sawn V tenon

Another view

Side view

Then I proceed to clean the sawn area.
This is where I failed, in the end the V tenon's angle all got messed up.
I reviewed David Schramm's video on how he did the clean up and follow his method.
I planed the angle into the front face of the tenon and put a 90 degree wood to serve as an reference to clean up the V tenon.

Checking the head angle

Then I use the same face to draw the mortise part and saw the mortise on the head blank.

Saw away the mortise part. Note my sharpened chisel, the mirror surface.

After than I proceed to fit the V-joint this is the most taxing part.
I am using hide glue and to glue well the joint must not have any gaps.
Hide glues doesn't glue well when there are gaps.

The mortise and the tenon

The fitted V-joint (still need to plane the head part to correct thickness)

From behind view

I use the shooting board (one of few jigs that I am making) to remove the end grain during the fitting process

Jig makinng: plate jointing jig
I spend my time making some jigs.
Here's the story.
When I want to glue the head plate for my #2 neck, I found that I need to join the back first and use the cutoff for the head plate.
So before I can join up the backs, I need a shooting board and a plate jointing jig.
So I made this plate jointing jig based on the LMI jig.

The plate jointing jig

The top on the bottom part of the jig.
A top plate would cover the 2 plates and a rope is use to pull the 2 plates together.
Then the wedge would be inserted to exert more pressure on the 2 plates.

Shooting Board and Preparing the back for Jointing

Well I made a shooting board for shooting and jointing.
And then I began to prepare the backs for jointing.
Using my 16" MuJingFang wooden plane with a sharpened blade I began to even out the edges.
At first I apply the clamp the the 2 boards but in the end I discover as I need to take out often to do a light thru' check, I just simply hold it in place using hand.
There is a stopper block at the end of the shooting board.

When I do a light thru' check, I hold the pieces up against my table lamp and check which part of the 2 boards emits the light.
Then I shoot more of the touching areas (no light area) and even out the gaps.
I stop when I don't see any light thru'
It's really a great learning experience.
Next to come will be joining the 2 backs together but due to the weather (raining)
I decide to leave it for next time. (When it's raining the RH will be too high)