I have these two maple neck blanks that are Home Depot wood that seem a little flexible so I decided to try and reinforce them. I initially thought about a single routed channel in which I would glue a piece of birch, maple or oak, but then I thought that with a 1/4" router bit I have room for two channels 3/8" deep with a definite wall between them. I wound up using birch strips on one neck and maple on the other because that was the scrap wood I had available that resulted in the least amount of work. Once the router table was set up it was pretty quick work to cut the 4 channels.
These will be my first maple necks and I'm really anxious to start shaping them, although I still have the wings and face plates to glue on the head stocks. I don't have a real clear vision about where I'm headed with these two, but getting the necks ready and paired up with boxes seems to be my method at the moment.
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Nice solution. If you were making fretless builds it would make a great looking feature with some interestingly grained hardwood.
This is what it looks like after clean up. After I got them to this point I glued wings on the pegheads. Tomorrow I'll clean and true the faces and glue on faceplates. These neck blanks feel stiff now and the fretboard will add another measure of stiffness, so I'm a happy camper at this point. This is all so much fun!
mike lowe does this, but he hammers in a steel bar, and makes the slot on the table saw.
this'll be plenty strong enuff unless your real unlucky with ur wood
youre doing nice stuff, bravo
You could also lay two 1x2s side by side, on edge, and laminate them together. I have one in progress that I also added a 1/4 inch strip of rosewood in the middle. So you wind up with a fretboard width of 1.75, and 1.5 deep.
It should be super strong. And the picture doesn't really show it too well, but it has some beautiful grain to it.
Even in the photo the grain looks great, should come up well with finishing.
Cheers Ron.
I like the idea and also the idea of having an oak, hickory, or some other off color wood would be awesome too. I have seen some necks like this and never thought about how they did it. Thanks for your demo. I might try that, but with no router, I will have my work cut out for me. Pardon the pun.
I have used a single strip of about the size of your 2 combined and simply glued it into position ... no router channel.
It adds strength, looks good, and does not interfere with playbility, also saves a lot of work.
On some builds I have also added a heel coming out of the box, which adds additional strength especially if you have removed material from the neck after it enters the box.