The Moderne - Holy Grail of Vintage Guitars

[pshupe]

I am relatively new to CNC and trying to work out better ways of machining something like necks. Ideally I would like to machine all four sides. Especially for necks that have tenons and drop heels like the Moderne. I should probably we working on more fixtures to hold the pieces but thought I would see if I could just use indexing holes in a neck blank. Here is my first shot at that.

I'm thinking I can use 4 indexing holes in my spoil board and then the same four hole locations on each face of my neck blank.

Cheers Peter.

 

[pshupe]

Got some time with the CNC machine and tweaking tool paths.

Machined truss rod route, anchor, and roughed the head stock angle.

Finish pass on the head stock angle

Cut the truss rod access route with the Stew Mac truss rod access cutter. I had a 3/4" spot facer with a spacer but this tool worked very well. Pretty much idiot proof which is good.

Cheers Peter.

 

[CB91710]

This is a perfect illustration of something my wife and I were chatting with LtDave about while we were at Rockler last Friday.
Reducing the headstock angle results in less "wasted" material... an angle that puts the top of the headstock even with the heel would result in being able to get two necks out of a block not much thicker than that.

Obviously, your goal is a reproduction, so it would not be appropriate here.

 

[pshupe]

This is a perfect illustration of something my wife and I were chatting with LtDave about while we were at Rockler last Friday.
Reducing the headstock angle results in less "wasted" material... an angle that puts the top of the headstock even with the heel would result in being able to get two necks out of a block not much thicker than that.

Obviously, your goal is a reproduction, so it would not be appropriate here.

An angle that would be equal to the heel height would be about 6 degrees. You would still need about 1/2" thicker stock. It would probably make more sense to lengthen the neck blank to nest the necks better. Stock neck blanks are around 3" x 3" x 30". This works for most electric and acoustic guitar necks. Probably some economy of scale here on the price. Quarter sawn Honduran Mahogany one piece blanks for about US$30. The best price per blank would be buying a large plank of 12/4 and nesting the necks as closely as you can. Does anyone need 40 necks at a time though? Besides Tom Bartlett. LOL

I would also then not be able to use CNC for my operations on the fret board side of the neck.

Cheers Peter.

 

[pshupe]

Fired up the HHG crock pot and glued in some filler strips. These are mahogany filler strips unlike the maple in a LP. The original necks on these were Korina like the Explorers and Vs and those guitars used the same wood for filler strips as the neck. So I thought I would make these from mahogany like the neck wood.

Cheers Peter.

 

[pshupe]

I cut out the mahogany neck. Lot's of wood left for head stock ears.

I also have the neck all modeled and ready to be cut in Fusion 360.

I bought a nice plank of Korina to make some necks as well. The boards I got from Tom B. ended up being quarter sawn and I will keep those for Explorer necks. I bought a 72" long x 10" wide x 8/4 chunk of Korina. It is flat sawn so should work out well for two piece laminated necks.

rough plank -

cross cut into 32" with a bit left over for some covers or something.

ripped into 3 equal pieces for each part. Should be almost quarter sawn when laminated.

Will get 3 necks from this plank. I still haven't decided on head stock shape. Definitely one Gumby and possibly a split V.

Cheers Peter.