Sliding dovetail advise needed please (setting a guitar neck

[Michelle_K]

I had a very frustrating day at college today. I spent the entire day trying to fit a dovetail neck joint. I cut the body end of the joint out ok then I cut the neck end out. Annoyingly the centre line was around 5mm to the right of the guitar centre line. So I proceeded to remove wood from the lower potion of the pin on the right hand side and wood off of the lower part of the shoulder also on the right hand side to move the neck to the left to meet the centre line. After removing around 2mm of material, the neck did not move any closer to the centre line. So frustrating. This is my first real attempt and I just don't get it. I have two uke bodies waiting for necks and I dare not attempt it until I get how to set the neck. I hoped maybe someone in hear could advise me or suggest a good article on how to set the neck. It would be greatly appreciated.
Not that it should make any difference, but I do this all by hand so I do not have a router jig for cutting the dovetail.

Thank you in advance.

 

[Ttrees]

John Hall has done videos on this on youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3YJh9OT4mw

And another
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKrobJK5-_8
You could also look up the official luthiers forum for useful jigs for the jobs
Have fun
Tom

 

[Jacob]

Everybody has this sort of struggle it's normal! Maybe practice on some scrap?
I guess careful marking out might be the main issue.
Another might be procedure - sometime's easier to do the difficult thing first e.g. fit a tool handle but shape it afterwards. If you shape it first it's difficult to get the hole in line. Don't know if this would work with guitar necks but if you are shaping it, leaving something left to finish after fitting might be a good idea.

 

[bugbear]

You could also look up the official luthiers forum for useful jigs for the jobs
Have fun
Tom

Agreed - there are lots of luthier forums/groups with both fellow beginners (so
you don't feel so bad) and experts offering good advice.

BugBear

 

[MrTeroo]

There was a build thread on here a while ago

https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/making-a-ukulele-t100091.html

 

[profchris]

There was a build thread on here a while ago

https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/making-a-ukulele-t100091.html

Ah, but I used a Spanish heel joint for my uke!

If your centre line is 5mm out then you really need to start over.

Glue a shim to the dovetail cheek where you've removed too much material. Then mark out the dovetail correctly and recut it (or more likely, use a chisel to take away the excess).

You have to work in the following order:

1. Get the neck lined up with the body, but sitting a couple of mm too high.

2. Get the fretboard surface parallel with the top.

3. Set your desired neck angle by removing wood from the relevant part of the heel where it mates with the body.

4. Finally remove wood equally from both cheeks until the neck drops into line with the top.

At each stage check you haven't changed any of the previous steps.

I'm not good at this, but you can keep glueing on shims and starting again until you run out of patience and burn the thing!

Important, make sure there is a gap in the pocket at the end of the dovetail. The joint pulls the neck into the body as you get closer to a fit, and if there is no gap this can't happen. Don't ask me how I found out