ibanezrocks said:
I was just wondering how easy it would be to make a neck through body guitar if you bought a neck like
this one
wouldn't it just be gluing on some sides, routing it for pickups and controls and then finishing it? or is there something tricky im missing?
if it isnt that hard that would be pretty cool because you could make whatever shape of body and headstock you want (optional unshaped headstock on carvin)
No, it is considerably more than just gluing on the wings. I build neck-throughs myself. It is a bit of a nightmare. They are about 25 times harder to finish than bolt or set neck instruments, because you have to finish them while they are together. Nightmare. Now, the Carvin neck saves you SOME of the neck shaping work, but you still have to shape the neck/body transition, at least a little. This is, by far, them most annoying bit of wood working on these things. The geometry of getting this bit right is almost impossible for me to explain, but it is a lot of picky, finicky, VERY annoying file work, always making sure you don’t fuck up the body with your file. This is also the one area of amateur guitars which is almost always lacking. I take that back, it is ALWAYS bulky and uncomfortable to play. I see guitars made by students in luthery schools, and they all have the same problems; Bulky, square, uncomfortable neck/body transitions. Even my first one had this problem, and I had my dad standing over my shoulder saying, "That is not right yet." Of course, my problem was that I was making a maple neck, and after three eight hour days trying to shape the fucker, I just gave up. Mahogany necks are much better, if you ask me. If I didn't like the guitars I am making so much, I would NEVER make another neck-through. Bolt-ons are MUCH, MUCH easier. Even set necks (which are still a pain) are easier.
Neck-throughs have other long term maintenance problems, as well. There is a lot of tension on the neck of a guitar, and though the light strings of electric guitars, and the monolithic construction of a neck-through's neck help, it is still a concern. Guys who repair guitars KNOW, for a fact, that every acoustic guitar ever made will eventually need a neck reset. It is a given. The neck angle changes, and the guitar needs to have that angle put back where it belongs. There is just no way around it. Well, on an acoustic, it is relatively easy (though time consuming). We know how to do it. But how do you take the neck of a neck-through electric if the angle changes? You can't, of course. So you need to be damn sure the neck is as stable as possible, and you need to do every-thing you can to keep that neck where it belongs. I use two carbon fiber rods which run the length of the neck, which actually run into the top of the guitar (I have a Les Paul thickness carved maple top on my guitars). This helps to resist the pull of the strings on the neck. A neck through has other advantages over acoustics in this regard. In order to sound good, an acoustic needs to be built rather light, with the result that the gluing surface available for the neck is rather small. There is no need for a gluing surface on a neck-through, as the neck is a monolithic piece from one end of the strings to the other. None the less, it is a concern.
Like I said before, buy some books. They will give you far better advice than a bunch of guys on the internet, even me. I mean, I am not going to spend a year or so writing and rewriting a post on a newsgroup. I would spend that much time writing a book which I would get paid for. Buy some books.
Light
"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
