Building
a Neck
Table of contents
- Modification date
- Introduction
- Tools
- Raw materials
- Preparing the neck blank
- Routing for
the truss rod channel
- Cutting the rough neck shape
- Thicknessing the peghead
- Final shaping the neck
- Relieving the back of the neck
- Preparing the fretboard
- Slotting
the fretboard
- Drilling
the truss rod access hole
- Gluing the fretboard to the neck
- Rough cutting the fretboard to the neck shape
- Installing fret inlays or markers
- Shaping the peghead to fretboard curve
- Shaping the back of the neck
- Peghead and neck heel logos
- Radiusing the fretboard
- Finishing the fretboard
- Insert side dot markers
- Install the frets
- File the fret ends
- Leveling the frets
- Crowning the frets
- Dressing the frets
- Finishing the neck
- Drilling the tuner holes
- Drilling the neck mount screw holes
- Making the nut
Modification date: August 29th, 2026
Introduction
Man, making guitar necks is the hardest part of building a guitar. It requires quite a few more tools than just building a guitar body. Also, it's the first thing you should do when building a guitar. Everything else depends on the neck. I used to buy Warmoth conversion necks. That is, a 24.75" scale neck that would fit into a standard Strat or Tele style body. When I started making my own necks I realized that I could make any kind of conversion neck that I wanted. I made 25" scale conversion necks, 24.75" conversion necks, and, after my arthritis got bad, 24.07" conversion necks. Wait, what? 24.07"? What's up with that? Well, I don't know how this actually happened but I can imagine the scene... Leo is hanging out at Fender when one of his people says, "Leo, we have to make a short scale neck! It's all the rage! We'll have to build a bunch of new fretting jigs!". And Leo, being Leo, says, "Hand me that 25.5" slotted fretboard you have over there.". When he gets it he looks at it and says, "Just cut the fretboard off about a half inch north of the first fret and then put the nut where the first fret was.". Et voila, a 24.07" scale neck. Without retooling. If you check the scale on a Jaguar or buy a "24 inch" fret slotting template and measure it, you'll find that it's actually 24.07 inches. This leads to a very short cut for making a short scale fretboard. You can just buy a 25.5" slotted, radiused fretboard and chop it off about a half inch north of the first fret.Tools
If you’re only going to make one neck you probably don’t need all of the tools that I’m going to list here. If you're going to buy a pre-slotted fretboard blank then you won't need the fret slotting jig but you'll still need the fret slotting saw to re-saw the frets after radiusing the fretboard. Keep in mind that the first guitar I ever made was built with only a few of these tools (specifically, a router, a random orbit sander, a fret saw, and a cheap three corner file (Albert Lee liked it so I must have done alright). If you’re going to make a bunch of necks (with shaped inlays) you might as well go ahead and bite the bullet and get the following:- Dremel tool
- Dremel router base from StewMac
- Dremel down-cut spiral bits from StewMac (I use 1/8” and 1/32”)
- Saf-T-Planer from StewMac
- Fret slotting saw (.023 kerf from Solo Guitars or Edgetool on Amazon)
- Fret
slotting jig (I like Solo’s, you also need one or more
templates to go with it)
- Medium sized three corner fret crowning file from StewMac ($36 or you could try the LAMSAM one on Amazon at $21)
- Nut slotting files. I've been using the Nomad set for 10s and they work fine for 9s. You can rock them to get larger slots.
- Fret tang nipper from StewMac (This isn't really necessary, I just like to recess the fret ends)
- Fret end cutter (I like StewMac’s because of the 8" length but there are others available cheaper on Amazon)
- Robo-Sanders from Klingspor (these are just drum sanding bits with a guide bearing)
- Bench top drill press (I would recommend a 12 inch with speed adjust although you can get by with a 10 inch)
- Bench top band saw
- Router (I’ve got the DeWalt and I like it a lot)
- Random orbit sander (5 inch is fine)
- Fret leveling bar (Amazon, StewMac’s are way overpriced)
- Rubber end or dead blow brass hammer (there are a couple of little kits on Amazon that have one of these along with a fret rocker and some other flotsam and jetsam)
- Straight and angled fret end filing blocks (Amazon, where else)
If you price this list out you’ll see that it gets pretty darn expensive (making guitar bodies requires far fewer tools). If you’re only going to make one neck then, instead, I would recommend buying one from Warmoth (get the stainless steel frets so that they won’t ever wear out). Now, since an unfinished Warmoth neck made of maple with a maple or rosewood fingerboard (with SS frets) costs about $250 you can see that buying the tools above pays for itself somewhere between neck number 2 and neck number 3. Also, I’ve bought 4 Warmoth necks and they have all been very well made but, no matter how good a job they do on setting them up, you’ll still have to level, crown, and dress the frets if you want really good action. One of the Warmoth necks I bought looked like a banana when I got it so I sent it back. They said all I had to do was to really crank down the truss rod and it would straighten out. I had tried straightening it out by tightening the truss rod but it was so hard to turn that I decided to send it back. Necks that cost $250 shouldn’t show up looking like that. I’ve also bought a few GFS (Guitar Fetish) necks (way cheaper) and the same holds true for them. Actually the best neck I ever got (requiring the least amount of work to get right) came from GFS... but so did the worst one. There are others, like Mighty Mite.
Raw materials
Preparing the neck blank
Routing for the truss rod channel
Cutting the rough neck shape
Thicknessing the peghead
Final shaping the neck
Relieving the back of the neck
Preparing the fretboard
Slotting the fretboard
Drilling the truss rod access hole
Gluing the fretboard to the neck
Rough cutting the fretboard to the neck shape
Installing fret inlays or markers
Shaping the peghead to fretboard curve
Shaping the back of the neck
Peghead and neck heel logos
Radiusing the fretboard
Finishing the fretboard
Insert side dot markers
Install the frets
File the fret ends
Leveling the frets
Crowning the frets
Dressing the frets
Finishing the neck
Drilling the tuner holes
Drilling the neck mount screw holes
Making the nut