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Permalink Reply by Westsailor . on June 7, 2015 at 1:34am

Being new to CBG's my 'nomenclature' may have been wrong. What I meant to convey was I needed to cut only a 1 1/8" X (up to) 3/8" deep -notch- in the neck to accommodate the depth of the pickup, not remove wood over the whole length of the neck ('slotting'?).

Prior to your first reply about the 'school of thought' I already glued a 1 3/8" (neck width) X 3/4" thick piece of wood to the neck that will span the width of the box. So, problem solved. However, based on your post I think I will go back and shave oh, 1/4" + off as adding another 3/4" was overkill anyway (just what I had available).

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Permalink Reply by Reeds Taylor on June 7, 2015 at 1:37am

This may help

http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/240913074?profil...

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Permalink Reply by Westsailor . on June 7, 2015 at 2:40am

That's pretty much exactly what I did although the wood I added is only to the part of the neck that is inside the box. It doesn't extend outside the box to form a heel. Hadn't thought about using screws in addition to gluing it (w/ Tightbond III). Couldn't hurt.

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Permalink Reply by Skeesix on June 7, 2015 at 11:08am

Referring to the diagram, if the pickup is mounted close to the fingerboard, make sure you have at least 2" of the second board extending past the pickup route area. This is why the board is shown extending out past the body like a heel.

If you don't, it might hold for awhile, but could eventually give way over time. Don't ask me how I know this ;-)

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Permalink Reply by john mackay on June 7, 2015 at 10:50pm

go tell us how you know this.lol

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Permalink Reply by Skeesix on June 8, 2015 at 5:39am

Ha ha  - the school of hard knocks - give it about a year. At first you will notice the strings are getting kind of high, then one day, probably right while you're playing, it will come apart in your hands. lol

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Permalink Reply by Westsailor . on June 8, 2015 at 11:20am

Now for sure I'm gonna add screws before and after the notch per the diagram

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Permalink Reply by John Sawyer on June 8, 2015 at 12:24pm

Titebond III is stronger than the wood... The biggest issue I see (without a picture to really see) is that you have 3 separate chunks of wood to reinforce along one line. I have never reinforced a box top to bottom ( as held in guitar playing orientation) as the box is not really structural... Electric strings have a lot less tension than acoustic strings (in general). The only reinforcing I normally do is a heel piece that is glued along the length of the neck and sticks out past the dado/thinned area of the neck, and out of the box. I hope I am making sense...

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Permalink Reply by Westsailor . on June 8, 2015 at 2:41pm

OK, so I really don't need screws then :)

I follow you except the '3 separate chunks of wood of wood to reinforce'.  The neck one chunk, the wood glued to the bottom as reinforcement as the 2nd and the third is?

Unless you are including the box as one of those chunks?

My particular construction will include two 2" long spacer blocks underneath and on each end of the neck inside the box. Once I'm happy with the fit overall they will be glued to both the neck as well as the box causing the neck to be 'integral' to the box bottom.  This leaves the top/lid free to open with the neck remaining in place.

Make sense?  I'll see what I can do to provide a pic

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Permalink Reply by Skeesix on June 9, 2015 at 11:18am

Correction - minimum of 3" extending beyond the notch is better.

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Permalink Reply by Westsailor . on June 9, 2015 at 5:27am

I decided to 'double down' and extend the length of the front spacer block to reach beyond either side of the slot for the pickup. This effectively makes the neck 2 1/8" thick under the slot for about 1 1/2" to either side.

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