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Hi

Can anyone tell me the sort of basics around the fretboard shape and if the neck should compliment the fretboard radius

I am just build my first neck from scratch for a OM acoustic..the neck is mahogany and fretboard is ebony

Neck is at block stage and fretboard is completely sqaure

What is the common radius and shape for an OM please

Thankyou

I use, medium width, 45mm at the nut, 55mm at the 12th fret for the fret board (6mm thick).
1 mm more or less for a slim or wide neck.
I use a compound radius, but believe 16" is a common radius for acoustics and used on a lot of Martins I think.
Don't know what an OM should have for a "original" neck shape.
For me neck shape is personal preference. I just cut/rasp/sand away until it fits my hand comfortably. But bring the curve of the neck section back into the fretboard at the edges. Some idea for what I mean can be seen here:-
https://www.martinguitar.com/featuresmaterials/featuresmaterials/neck-widthshapes.html
Taylor shapes pictures

General shapes here
http://www.rocketmusiconline.com/necks.htmlg
Googling "guitar neck shape pics" will make your head spin...
Thickness, well, 22mm at the nut, 24 at the 9th fret, including fretboard may be a good place to start. (I like maybe 1 mm less)
(All the dimensions quoted from my guitar building course)

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Thanks colin

Radius of a fingerboard can be any where from 10",12", 16", 20", standards are 12 and 16 can get radius blocks or cnc radius aluminum for sanding fingerboard.

Neck thickness and shape is all over the place.
Find a neck you like the feel of and measure the thickness at 1st fret, 9th fret including fingerboard.
Then worry about shape.

I typically start off with a 16in radius and then finish it off with sanding beam so it's a compound radius of unknown dimensions. 16 seems to be a good average.

Buy yourself one of these cool gizmos from Grizzle Tools - they are designed for copying moldings but they are perfect for neck profiles. About 8 bucks if I remember. Take your favorite guitar and copy the neck - I usually do first and 12th frets. I also measure the thickness and width at those points with digital calipers.



Make a couple of templates and you can reproduce those necks perfectly.



ps - what I like in a neck (wide nut and bridge, fairly flat f/b, moderately chunky with a bit of a vee) is not what some of my customers want. In this picture I am building an ES-175 clone but my customer brought me an old Les Paul that he really liked the neck and asked me to duplicate it.

I need me one of those dealy-whoppers.
Great idea!

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