Prepping the Neck

Before I can get to the fun stuff like carving the scroll, there is some basic work that needs to be done on the neck stock. First and foremost, it isn't even squared up yet. So I take my little block plane and fix that problem right away. Notice what a big chunk of wood this is. I'll be getting both necks out of this one piece.


So once the wood is completely square, I can take it to the bandsaw and cut out some blanks for the two necks. I just generally cut them, not even trying to achieve a particular shape, but really just separating them from one another.



You may notice that one of these neck blanks is significantly longer than the other. That one would be for the cigar box fiddle. The cigar box is about ten inches long, whereas the length of a violin body is typically fourteen. In order to keep the bridge in the acoustical center of the box, and to keep the scale length the same as an average fiddle so that it's comfortable to most violin players, I elongate the neck.


The next step is to lay out the profile of the neck. Once again, I have an aluminum template that functions pretty well for that. I set it in place and trace around it, then use a square to carry lines over the flattened "fingerboard surface." I use these lines to align the template on the other side of the neck blank. My template has holes in it at the scroll area that I use as a guide to make marks with pushpins. These marks are a guide for the actual carving of the scroll.


I cut out around the pegbox area and most of the neck with a bandsaw, but I leave plenty of wood at the heel area for stability. Then I use my marking gauge to scribe a centerline down the entire neck blank, scroll, pegbox, and all.
Using my scribed centerline and the two lines (the nut shelf and the end of the neck blank) I marked earlier when transferring the template, I can lay out the top of my neck.


Next, I cut the excess from the sides (I keep these, though, so that I can shim the neck square to a work surface later). I leave extra wood at the end of the headstock, of course. That's where my scroll belongs. But that's a story my next blog...