This is the most difficult neck I make. The following pictures roughly outline the many steps involved using both machines and hand tools. The first shot shows the separate blocks used that make up the entire neck. The scroll is glued on after much of the machine work is done on the peghead.
To speed layout, I use clear templates of the different shapes and contours that occur in this neck. This shot shows the one used for laying out the side profile. By the way, while I could use the plastic template material that draftsmen use, these are made of cook’s cutting boards. They work just as well and cost about one tenth as much. And besides, they come in fun colors!
This shot might make it more clear why I glue the scroll block on after I’ve done some machining. To make modern tuners work with this design, I have to mount them in a way they weren’t intended to be mounted. To do this, and still supply the needed wood for support of the tuners, I have to carefully route out a recess for them. By having the scroll block out of the way, I can use the flat face of the peghead for a reference surface for the router.
At this point in the construction, I’m doing a lot of test fitting, looking to see that knobs fall an equal distance from both sides of the peghead and display some symmetry. Also, it’s just fun to put them in place and get an idea of where things are headed.
In all the previous shots, the neck looked ridiculously wide. That was on purpose. By leaving the sides of the neck shaft wide and parallel to one another and the center seam, I’ve got two excellent reference surfaces by which to route and install the neck reinforcement. In this case, I’m using a square steel Martin tube set into a bed of industrial epoxy. This short length of neck won’t be moving anytime soon.
After the truss rod has been glued into place and the recesses for the tuners have been cut, I can glue the scroll block on and begin rounding it to its finished shape. That sounds simpler than it is. Keep in mind, the decorative ebony center seam has to match up on both blocks and, when the glue face is covered in glue, the last thing these blocks want to do is stay in alignment. Thats why I clamp the whole assembly onto a board along with wooden blocks to keep things from moving out of position. The outer contour of the scroll is a critical one since all the rest of the scroll references off of it. In fact, the one thing that keeps coming up in the construction of this peghead, is the need to perform certain cuts in a certain order to maintain reference surfaces for the cuts to come.
This shot shows the little plastic template I use to keep the curve that forms the scroll even and symmetrical from one side to the other.
The first major work on the scroll is carving the center volute. It really doesn’t become part of the scroll at all. In fact, it’s the suggestion of a scroll in this stylized form that really appeals to me.
Now we’re getting to the fun part. This is where the scroll begins to take on a bit more of a sculptural quality. Unfortunately, I’m not able to use my chisels on this particular neck as much as I’d like because of the grain characteristics of this highly flamed wood. It just wants to chip out. Still, I am able to make good use of my Japanese Dozuki saw, a tool I’ve touted more than a couple of times in the past. Since most of the finish work will be done with rasps, rifflers and sanding blocks, the more wood I “waste” or get out of the way quickly, the less hand work I’ll have to do later saving me a little bit of time. Here, I’ve started faceting the spiral of the scroll after laying out the angle the scroll widens to.
In this last shot of this first installment, I’ve shown the waste wood removed and a better suggestion of what the scroll will look like is revealed. Figuring out exactly how much the spiral needs to angle out to result in a scroll like the originals is pretty demanding. Fortunately, I’ve got lots of reference pictures and, having done this a few times, it actually is pretty obvious to me when things are in their correct proportions.
