The Deluxester Prototype - Sonic's foray into repeatable scratch builds

[Sonic Mountain]

So I've changed the route to let the rod sit the correct way up. I'm thinking where the arrow is here I should glue in a small piece of wood to hold the truss rod in the neck? Am I over thinking this?



My other thought was to make something similar to the insert that Fender have at the top of the truss rod and have that act as a retainer.

Anyone got any thoughts?

Fortunately, due to the head stock design, this channel is offset, meaning I could flip the blank and start again if this is the wrong approach.

I'm basically going by this guide... and it looks like he just does one run with a bit of a flair at the end. No notching or anything. It's hard to tell.. towards the end of the tutorial the adjustment end looks different.. so I'm not sure what he's doing there.

http://projectelectricguitar.com/how...and-fretboard/

[Woltz]

If you want to glue in a small piece of wood there then I don't see any reason why you couldn't although I'm not expert.

In that guide he puts a little bit of silicon in the channel at the heel end which would hold the truss rod in place.

I never bothered with that on my neck on my scratch build. In a completely neutral position there is a little tiny bit of movement and rattle but I figure that as soon as the rod has slight adjustment in either direction it should stay snug.

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[Sonic Mountain]

Yeah, I was thinking that re the silicone. It'd probably be enough. And I also thought that once its got a bit of adjustment it should hold as well. I'm just a bit paranoid...

Thanks for the input, I'll see if any of the other scratch builders have some comment before I go any further.

Cheers.

[FrankenWashie]

In the F style off set necks i have made, I routed the channel after thinning the headstock, but before doing the curve down from the nut. I used a long auger bit to bore the through hole to the TRC and then fed the adjuster end through.
This was all done pre-drill press, the next one i make, i'm probably just going to set up with a long series brad point bit before thinning the headstock and cutting the curve.

[Sonic Mountain]

This is what I'm thinking I should have done. Trying to work out the order of operations is doing my head in.

Well I'm on the fence about pushing forward vs flipping the blank and starting again. I'll sleep on it I think.

[Woltz]

Sonic this might be of use if you haven't already seen it.

https://www.tdpri.com/threads/truss-...adjust.915489/

[Sonic Mountain]

Cheers. There is definitely more than one way to do it.

I think I am going to flip the blank over and start again. This was a good practice run and I haven't lost anything but some time.

[Sonic Mountain]

This is driving me crazy.

I've started marking up the reverse side. But I've run into another issue. The channel for the rod needs to be 9mm deep. This puts the adjuster just over 9 mm into the neck blank. The blank is 22 mm - so if I make the headstock 15mm thick.. which is about average, the adjuster will sit about 2-3mm below that face. So I can't just drill using a long bit without leaving a channel all the way along the face of the headstock.

So the options are to make the headstock thinner - about 12mm, which might make the tuners stick out a bit far?

Or I can do what I was basically doing on the other side and route a relief in the headstock big enough to get an allen key into.

I think the latter will be the most practical.. but I'm open if anyone has any better ideas. Do I just drill at a slight angle perhaps?

The onyl other thing I can think of is trying to recess the truss rod partially into the fretboard....but I'm not a huge fan of that idea- sounds tricky to get right. Plus I think I want to keep as much thickness in the centre of the board as I can for it to act.

Diagram to hopefully illustrate what I mean. The red circle shows how far the adjuster sits into the headstock face.

Interested in any feedback. I'm going to start routing the main channel bit, will check back here in a little while.

[Sonic Mountain]

Welp I've just pushed on. I think if I get the headstock down to 14mm it'll be OK to drill through into the Truss rod channel. And if there isn't enough depth I'll just route a small pocket for it to sit in.

Anyway, cut a new, much nicer channel - its exactly long enough for the rod to sit in so it had no chance of moving.

Located the fretboard and put some locator pins in.

Cut and routed the neck shape. I did get a small tear out at the top of the headstock annoyingly, so I've brought it down about 4 mm from what it should be. Looks ok.

So this is where I'm at. I can't decide if the body looks too small. I am considering having another go and making it a bit broader, just so the proportions look right.

Plenty to go on the neck so I'll see how it goes once that's finished being shaped. It looks a lot chunkier now than it will end up once its carved... and it looks ok in the pics.. .prob just need to trust myself.

[Sonic Mountain]

Quick mock up. As I've lopped a fret off and moved the whole neck down the bridge is further back than originally planned so I'll do a pickguard that takes up a bit of that gap. Will extend the cavity a little as well to get the bridge pickup further back.