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I'm helping someone finish up a kit guitar that has a looming problem with the fretboard extension. The top was not domed and there is no taper between the soundhole and the neck block: it's dead flat end to end. Obviously the end of the fret board is going to be up in the air when the neck is set properly. He doesn't like the idea of gluing an ebony wedge to the bottom of the fingerboard and prefers to just glue the fretboard extension down and let it fall off tword the soundhole. If we do this I'm thinking we should cut the 14th fret slot deeper to relieve some of the stress. Is there another solution to this problem I haven't thought of? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

                        Peace, Paul`

Well, there will be one other problem that I can see Paul. Because the top is dead flat (I'm assuming from the front to that tail) your friend has not taken into account that you will need an extremely high bridge just to get the strings to clear the fretboard (if you set the neck back that is [edit])

See a 25' radius will drop the front of the guitar by just over 1/8" so now your friend has easily raised the bridge height by 1/8" (heavy bridge indeed). You certainly can do this however it would have been better to at least angle the front of the body.

So, I'll answer your question with another question.

Why bother to set the neck back at all? why not just leave it level with the top and make a shorter bridge?Rod True39097.9105439815

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Remember, the set of the neck is there to aid in the proper hight of the bridge. If you set the neck now, you will have to make a very tall bridge. Make the bridge a standard height (3/8") and than set the neck if required, but I would think that you wouldn't need to set it at all.

The neck set should always be done in correspondence to the height of the bridge, not the other way around.


Edit...

So thinking a bit more about this, you don't need to set the neck at all, just put the neck on there flat so the extension sits flat on the top with the fretboard and frets on, hold a straight edge on top of the frets and see what the distance is between the top and the straight edge. It should be around 9/32+/-. So, use a 9/32" hight bridge and with a saddle that is about 1/16-3/32" higher than the bridge, you should have good clearanceRod True39097.9150347222

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"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

the back angle of the neck is done for structural reasons, and some folks do think that cf martin descendents made a pretty good fist for just a few decades or so of building guitars by setting the neck first and using a bridge sized to suit the neck set.

guess what, it is easier to adjust a bridge thickness than a neck set.

it would sound as though this guitar may need lights or extra lights on it.