Hi, I am not a luthier although I play one in my basement. This is the first of 3 SGs I have made so far with this kind of neck joint. They were all made with $30 necks found on Ali-express, and I plan on making my own neck for #4, with dots of course because there's no way I can do those trapezoids, I just don't have the patience. But first, let me see if this image loads.
Thanks, and thanks for verifying that the pic can be seen, now I can start posting boring assembly pics. The bevels were copied from my early 1970 SG, which is nothing more than a bare body now, as the neck cracked off in the early 80s. Which drove my determination to make a real solid neck joint.
Ok, so I was thinking we need something stronger than mahogany at the neck joint. I came up with laminating a much stiffer wood to replace the tenon and heel area, and have that wood span as far as possible. I chose padauk, it has a higher jenka hardness than maple, and glues up well, especially with the low-viscosity epoxy I'll be using.
I sandwich the cheap neck between wood so I can route down it's heel down to near neck profile depth.
All glued up, and just rough sanded the heel with a belt sander. It starts at like the 13th fret and extends past the neck pickup, which is ok because of the batwing pickguard.
Make the pickguard and route for pickups. I wanted the neck into the body as far as I could and still reach the 22nd fret. This is a little too far, I backed off on the other 2 guitars I made. I'll finish tomorrow, bedtime here...
I am impressed, it looks fantastic. Tell us about the knob layout you chose and how it’s wired. Is that two volume and one tone?
Thanks, yes it's V-V-T and the neck vol is a push-pull for bass cut. I also have the selector switch rotated to follow the throw of a strat.
I wanted the strap button on the horn, so I slotted the horn to recess the Ernie Ball quick release button. those straplocks are awesome!
interesting! prs uses a deeeeep inset neck tenon on some of their guitars. how far down does your neck heel go into the body?