New Guitar Project: Les Paul Junior Build – Part Four

It’s time to make a neck for this guitar.  But there are a few things to take into consideration.

Les Paul necks were notorious for being weak at the point where the headstock meets the neck, because there isn’t much wood (thanks to the truss rod adjustment cavity) and because often the grain is horizontal instead of vertical.

In wood terms, it’s  flatsawn  or plain sawn instead of  quartersawn.

The closer to quartersawn the wood is, the stronger that area is. If you had a flatsawn neck, it was a catastrophe waiting to happen.

Nowadays, people build these kinds of necks using quartersawn lumber, since it is stronger. 

Because Les Paul necks are glued into the body, they need to be made from much thicker pieces of wood than Fender-style necks. I didn’t have any thick quartersawn mahogany stock. 

But I did have some leftover wood from building my bed, and I also had a bunch of maple veneer that had been sitting around for a while too. So I decided to  make a quartersawn neck blank. I took three pieces of mahogany and put maple veneer between them simply for aesthetics:

 I glued it up and let it dry overnight. 

The maple in the photos is overhanging; I trimmed it off and we’ll see the result later.

Once I had the blank cleaned up, I needed to cut the headstock angle. I have a jig for this using a miter saw, though to be honest I need to make a better jig.

I cut the blank at a 14 degree angle:

This gives me the face of the headstock. Then I needed to cut the excess off the back of the headstock. Mahogany is pretty easy to cut, so I used this extra-large coping saw:

I used it to cut away the excess wood on the back of the headstock: 

To clean up the back of the headstock, I used the router jig I showed you above. I put the neck face down, and clamped it so that the headstock face was dead flat on the bench. Then I used the router to get the back of the headstock flat and  parallel to the face. Here’s a very simple drawing to illustrate:

The headstock wasn’t wide enough at this time. It’s very common, actually. There’s no sense using up a lot of extra lumber along the entire length of the neck when you only need two little pieces around 5/8″ thick on the sides of the headstock. Gibson has done it that way for years:

I needed to make some wings. I’m going to finish the headstock in clear lacquer, so I need to try and match the wood as best I can. The best thing would be to use the same wood.

Like, for instance, the piece I cut off when I did the headstock angle. I cut it in half, not worrying about the cut because it would get machined away:

Once I had two pieces, I could glue them onto the sides of the headstock. This is a different neck, but you get the idea.

I also put pieces of maple laminate between the pieces, just to carry the concept forward. Photos later.