Here’a a YouTube video of me carving a neck for a customer. I’m building a replacement/fretless conversion for an Ibanez SR bass, and I video’d the process over the course of a few days. Usually, a carve takes me 2-3 hours, but this one took more like 4-5. Haha – operating a camera while carving a neck is for the birds!
Funktronic does all kinds of custom neck builds. Contact us for any questions you may have about building custom necks.
I made a little iPhone video of me using Bruce Johnson’s fretboard radius fixture to cut a fretboard radius.
I just finished this custom headless bass neck for a customer. I used to think that headless instruments were for total weirdos, but this is a really bitchin’ neck. It has a custom-designed headless string anchor system and the laminated maple construction has aluminum reinforcement bars for extra stiffness. The truss rod is a Bruce Johnson designed stainless steel double action compression truss rod, and is integrated into the heavy-duty neck bolt anchors. This will be going into a rescued 30.7” Hagstrom bass. I can’t wait to see this thing complete! Yowzers!
The customer requested that the neck be made as stiff as possible. The neck was designed for very rigid. Hard maple was selected for consistent, straight grain, and all laminates were arranged so the grain formed characteristic “V” pattern. This optimizes the natural grain structure, providing a solid platform for the neck.
All of my necks are made from carefully selected hardwoods. As a policy, my materials are chosen for their straight, uniform grain patterns. While this may not sound as exciting as a highly figured specialty hardwood, my necks are designed for strength, stability and longevity. Think of them as high performance pieces as opposed to show pieces.
Aluminum bars run the entire length of the neck for extra stiffness. Aluminum is a lightweight, yet torsionally stiff material, and the bars provide more resistance against string pull.
Each bar was installed between the laminates during the gluing process.
The custom made string anchor secures each string with a pair of bolts. The double bolt design creates a stable platform for each string, lessening the chance of breakage. The anchor itself is anchored to the neck using a through bolt design.
I just read this cool article about a self-taught luthier in Kinshasa, Congo who goes by Socklo. His guitars look really killer. It’s always really inspiring to me to see guys like this out there who put their stuff out there and just do it because there’s something inside them that makes them have to do it. My only complaint is that the article doesn’t show enough of his work!
I’ve been experimenting with this piece of torrefied walnut I bought at Woodworker’s source. So far so good. I think the color is great, the wood tools really nicely, and by the board foot, it wasn’t super expensive. I haven’t finished this neck, so I can’t give it my 100% endorsement yet. However, I don’t foresee there being any problems going forward. I think this is going to make a really handsome neck.
Judging from the one or two spots of epoxy I put in the neck, I’m anticipating the finished neck to be very dark brown into almost black in color. Torrefied walnut might even make a good fretboard, but I haven’t tried it yet myself. Maybe after I finish this neck.
This neck is going to go on my new Sirena Pistolera Bass.
