Wednesday, 23 July 2014

Stone Roses Tribute: Setting the Neck

So the day finally arrived when this Stone Roses Tribute could start being assembled. The clear coats have been subjected to IR lamps for a few days and given I wont be polishing the surface to a shine, I'm pretty confident I can move on with the next steps. The first and most important task - gluing the set neck!

There was quite a bit of play in the neck of this kit, both in and out and laterally within the neck pocket. To make sure the neck was glued at the correct angle, I installed the bridge and tailpiece first along with the tuners. This allowed me to get the two E strings placed up the neck to check for correct lateral angle.

To make sure the neck was installed at the correct depth, I installed the neck pickup and made sure the neck wasn't so far into the pocket that it stopped the pickup from being installed. I marked pencil lines to indicate the exact depth required on each side of the neck to accomodate the pickup.

In terms of the neck angle front to back, putting the bridge at it's lowest height I was able to establish that the two E strings were touching the first few frets. This indicated that a good action could be dialed in without the need to shim the neck. Phew! With all this done, the neck could be glued into the correct place and clamped.




I used Titebond to glue the neck into the pocket (the king of wood glues) and now must wait two days for the glue to fully dry before putting any weight on it (ie. stringing it up!). I'm pretty happy with how the neck is sitting and can't wait to give this baby a strum!

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