HOW TO PLANE DOWN THE HEEL OF A NECK?

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MetalManiac

MetalManiac

Li'l Junior Member
Well so, I got me a good Squire Affinity neck has been reworked- new jumbo frets, leveled, Crowned real well. Plays better than it sounds, but sounds good. Unfortunately these Affinity necks are the ones that are to tall for a regular made in Mexico neck pocket and that is want to put it on.

Ive got a random Orbital sander. From my experience, I can never get wood level when using a orbital sander.

The MIM body a pretty cool guitar with trick electronics and solid pickups, and an upscale solid brass trem w/ steel saddles. I'd love to fit the neck to it.

Anyone done this before?

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Re: HOW TO PLANE DOWN THE HEEL OF A NECK?

A bench mounted belt sander would be the best tool for the job.
They're big bastards with 4" or 6" wide belts and usually have
an orbital wheel on the vertical plane off to the side for more complex wood shaping.
You could try it with a hand held belt sander but might be tricky with just two hands.
Maybe get a mate to hold the sander whilst you feed the neck, ever so carefully.
 
Re: HOW TO PLANE DOWN THE HEEL OF A NECK?

Or simply stick a shim in on the headstock end of the neck pocket.
 
Re: HOW TO PLANE DOWN THE HEEL OF A NECK?

Leave the neck alone. Remove wood from the neck pocket. You can even engineer in the neck pitch angle.
 
Re: HOW TO PLANE DOWN THE HEEL OF A NECK?

just get a 100 or 80 grit sandpaper and be a man
 
Re: HOW TO PLANE DOWN THE HEEL OF A NECK?

EDX said:
just get a 100 or 80 grit sandpaper and be a man
Click to expand...

Well, Im all for being a man, but men don't necessarily get dead even neck heels with hand sanding . I wouldn't even attempt it. Unless you can enlighten me on exactly how it's done besides 'whip out the sandpaper and go to town'.
 
Re: HOW TO PLANE DOWN THE HEEL OF A NECK?

get a straight edge and glue the sandpaper on it, also you can use a straight wooden block as the base, then you need some way to clamp the neck to a table, also you will need a level (you could use the bubble level app ar the google web app on a smartphone), you also need a pencil, a 4B or any soft pencil will work.

after clamping the neck on a table so it's fixed there and you can work it without the neck moving, with the pencil you will "paint" the neck heel, so that when you sand it you have a better visual reference, measure and mark how much of the heel you will sand, also if you will angle it, draw the angle on the side and "paint" it with the pencil, so you can see how much you sand, then it's only about start sanding down the heel with care, after you have sanded the first pencil painted layer use your straight edge to measure how straight it is, and then the level to watch out for the flatness of your sanding, pencil the heel again and keep repeating the process until you have sanded the desired amount of wood.

finally, go to the fridge, take the coldest beer, get back to your bench, look at the neck, drink your beer and enjoy the feeling of being able to do a really nice woodworking by hand
 
Re: HOW TO PLANE DOWN THE HEEL OF A NECK?

^ Anything long is usually good for stability and straight sanding. Hence the use of belt sanders above. Also a straightedge helps to check the work as you go, and a set of calipers to check your straight sanding is level with the top plane.
 
Re: HOW TO PLANE DOWN THE HEEL OF A NECK?

Common sense would dictate that you simply rout down the required amount into the neck pocket. Then if, in the future, you should ever need to fit a regular height neck back onto that body, you just insert shim to replace the amount that you routed out. It's the most invisible, least destructive, and most reversible method.

If, however, you absolutely insist that the body remain unmolested because it's MIM, but a measly Squire neck is okay to hack, then just rout what you need off of the back of the neck heel, starting at the point where the neck heel begins to overhang the neck pocket. It's as easy a routing job as there is: a straight line. All you have to do is install the neck, mark a straight line on it using the body as a guide, then remove the neck. Then you just make a simple box guide/jig for your router, and take off the desired amount from the line back.

If it had to be done by hand, I'd do the same "step" method I talked about above on the neck, using a hand plane to do the meat of the work and a hand sanding block to finish. A [sharp] chisel would be used to carve the line/step.
 
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Re: HOW TO PLANE DOWN THE HEEL OF A NECK?

Count me in the "rout the neck pocket" camp, but how many thousandths do you have to take off?

Consider this: a Fender neck should lay dead flat on a table at the headstock and heel, with no truss rod tension. This makes the answer for the neck simple and obvious: a jointer.
 
Re: HOW TO PLANE DOWN THE HEEL OF A NECK?

The pocket is obviously the best for being able to evenly remove a set amount of wood. But the issue is the stability of the router whilst doing so. You might be able to use some 1/4" ply and cut a suitable shape out of it to access the pocket, but unless you already have the router and the right depth pattern bit, some clamps and are prepared to buy the ply if its not to hand then it is a lot more complicated than simply breaking out the paper.
 
Re: HOW TO PLANE DOWN THE HEEL OF A NECK?

^ Nobody is saying to just freehand it and hope for the best. It goes without saying that you fabricate the necessary templates to do the job.

Jerry, if you go this route, you want to make a neck pocket template first, using a standard flush trim bit (i.e. the kind with the bearing on the end). Because of the length of most commonly available router bits, I'd screw a sheet of blank 3/4" MDF into the body somewhere that is hidden by the pickguard, making sure you countersink and clean up your holes so there is nothing to get under the router base and keep it from laying flat and moving freely. (You could use 1/2" or even 1/4" MDF if you have the short bit that Stewart MacDonald sell, but a standard off the shelf bit will be at least an inch long, so you'll need 3/4" material.) For support, screw a block of wood the same thickness as the guitar body underneath the other end of the MDF sheet. Drill to start, and rout to finish your template, using the existing neck pocket as a guide, opening up a hole at least the size of the entire neck pocket. Without even removing the template, clean up your router flash, then go back with a top bearing flush trim bit. It's a very easy to perform and hard to screw up routing job, and best of all, it leaves the neck and its finish unmolested. It's the "right" way to do the job IMO, and if you don't have the stuff to do it that way, I'd just borrow it or rent it.

Alternately, neck pocket templates are available for purchase from various sources (Google for them).

The quick and cheap way to do it is to just say you don't care one bit about the neck finish, and use a hand plane followed by a sanding block on the neck heel. All this router talk is only if you care about preserving the neck as stock.
 
Re: HOW TO PLANE DOWN THE HEEL OF A NECK?

Seeing as nobody else has asked yet, Jer, what is wrong with the existing MIM Stratocaster neck?
 
Re: HOW TO PLANE DOWN THE HEEL OF A NECK?

Actually, he'd be better off doing it in a table router with a pattern bit, using the neck pocket itself as its own template.
 
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