YouTube user Heath Daniels recently posted a video detailing a neck he carved himself. The video is almost 10 minutes long, but in that 10 minute you will learn quite a bit.
WOODWORKERS: Do you agree with the way Heath carved his neck? Would there have been anything you would do differently? Post a comment or two with your thoughts.
The bass playing in the background is really annoying. The player keeps tapping his pickups as if that’s good bass playing. As far as the woodworking, Heath used a flimsy little ruler as a straight edge. Invest is a real one. The neck came out fine, so it doesn’t really matter how you get there.
A lot of work when you can buy a neck already made.
Why would anybody build anything ever… that was a ridiculous comment
If you just buy a neck you are an assembler not a builder…
Great video. Slightly different method than what I’ve seen in the past. It’s nice to see other ways of doing it to mix it in to my own technique.
(By the way, the “spoke shave” wasn’t a spoke shave. That would be a rasp. A spoke shave is like a draw blade mixed with a hand plane. Not a big deal though.)
Wow ! that is a much Better way to do it than I do. I usually just shape the whole neck. I take one side at about a 30 degree angle, same thing on The opposite side and then start rounding and Shaping. I will try it next neck . Thank You Heath and Best Bass Gear, Peter D Kindred.
I use the same basic method, but I will also use a belt sander to remove the edges. A better straight edge is a must to identify high and low spots. A set of calipers is also helpful in getting a good thickness measurement and even taper.
So both Heath and the previous commenter are incorrect. The tool being used here for major material removal is neither the spokeshave nor the rasp. It is in fact the lowly surform. True spokeshaves make this method seem glacially slow, and can be used to great effect, as the rounding of a square length of timber is precisely what the spokeshave was designed to do.
Very interesting! I have never seen a neck carved manually. Kinda shows you how things were done before automation. Thanks for the education.
Looks quite similar to the way I do necks but I often do neck thru body or one piece basses. Because of this with some I am unable to make the first cuts on the band saw so I end up using files and rasps to remove all the material.
A very interesting video. Thanks so much for taking the time to do this and sharing it.
As an inspiring bass luthier this was very helpful. Thank you for posting!
While I do not use a band saw on the first round of roughing in. Mainly because I do not trust my band saw skills for such an operation. Short of that, this is almost exactly how I do mine, all the way down to using the ruler.
Enjoyed watching this video.The second neck I’ve watched being carved today.I’ve always fancied doing something like this.I was really good at Woodwork when I was in school.This would give me tremendous satisfaction having a go and completeting a neck build.
I love work . . . I could watch it all day!