Lines are drawn where you want to cut the neck out, involving two steps. <\/p>\n
1. Lay out the taper of the neck.<\/p>\n
2. Lay out the cut line for the headstock.<\/p>\n
The headstock is ordinarily taken from a template, but the neck shape is not and is laid out by hand. While there are templates for neck tapers, in our experience they tend to be warped (meaning not straight.) Neck taper lines that are drawn by hand is the better option here for accuracy.<\/p>\n
When drawing cut lines, on a light-colored wood like maple it will be very easy to see pencil. On darker woods such as rosewood or ebony, it can be exceedingly difficult to view because a gray pencil line blends in with dark brown almost too easily. It is suggested to double-stick paper on the fretboard itself and then draw on it so your pencil lines can be seen.<\/p>\n
We are still referencing the same side of the neck that we did back when we routed the truss rod, then used the same side to cut fret slots.<\/p>\n
Being the truss rod is directly in the center of the neck, that can be used to determined where to draw the center line. The line can be drawn directly on the wood (or paper can be adhered to the blank and drawn on if the wood is too dark to see a pencil line as mentioned above.)<\/p>\n
For easy reference, we will refer to the edge-to-center measurement as X.<\/p>\n
The desired nut with would be Y.<\/p>\n
Subtract half of Y from X, and that measurement is the edge of the blank to the near edge of the nut.<\/p>\n
The other side of the nut is X plus half of Y.<\/p>\n
While there are complicated mathematical ways to determine the heel width on your blank, the easier (although slightly time-consuming but well worth it) way of doing that is to draw out the bass full size first on paper. <\/p>\n
Once heel width is determined, that can be termed as Z.<\/p>\n
X – 1\/2 Z = edge of blank to near edge of heel.<\/p>\n
X + 1\/2 Z = edge of blank to far side of heel.<\/p>\n
When all is said and done, four marks should now be on the blank, indicating where the boundaries of the neck will be. A straight edge can be used at this point to connect those lines, if the builder (you) are satisfied that the measurements are accurate.<\/p>\n
Use whatever you have that is available to draw your straight line against, as long as you are absolutely sure it is straight<\/em>. <\/p>\n Drawing lines for your headstock should be far easier to accomplish as you will be following a template. The largest concern is just making sure the template is centered on the center line properly.<\/p>\n Note: In our headstock template, the pegboard holes were already present, so they were drawn on the blank at the same time the actual headstock was drawn. We will be covering headstock holes in a later article.<\/p>\n The recommended tool once you are ready to cut your blank is the band saw. The band saw will come in quite handy since you will be encountering quite a few curves when you go to cut the headstock.<\/p>\n Very important note:<\/strong> The band saw will result in your edge being rough. That being true, do not cut directly along your drawn pencil lines<\/em>. It is better to cut slightly outside of your drawn lines since you will be sanding down the excess later when shaping. If you have never made a cut like this before, it is suggested to stay 1\/8″ outside the drawn line. It is better to use caution here and not try for a 1\/16″ inch from pencil line cut, as it can result in going over the line and losing part of your neck.<\/p>\n Where are the rest of the build steps? Laying out the dimensional outline of the neck Lines are drawn where you want to cut the neck out, involving two steps. 1. Lay out the taper of the neck. 2. Lay out the cut line for the headstock. The headstock is ordinarily taken from a template, but the neck shape is not and is … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":7678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[70],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7679"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bestbassgear.com\/ebass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Headstock line drawing considerations<\/h3>\n
Recommended saw<\/h3>\n
You can view them all here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"