Official Luthiers Forum!

Which is better? The burst on the neck or without the burst. I'm not a big fan of bursts, but I'm trying to cover the mistake of the neck blocks being out of line with the lamination. It was perfect when I glued it up, but got worse as I started carving. So far I have 2 coats of epoxy on and 1 thin coat of shellac before applying the colored lacquer. It can be sanded off easily at this stage. I'll also burst just behind the volute on the neck too. What do you recommend?




Thanks for your help!
Tracy

I personally don't like it.... It just looks a little strange to me....

_________________
John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

Yo yo Tracy.
I agree with Johh. Looks weird. Could you inlay something there to cover it up?

Mike

_________________
Mike

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh." The Stranger

Well you can't leave it can you? So what to do? Mike may be right. You could do some inlay to cover it. If your gonna do a burst I would say burst the back and sides as well, not just the neck. It looks funny now but once you get a nice three color burst on there It'll look like you planned it that way.

Good luck

I don't like it either, but I had to try something. I like the inlay idea the best. Probably something Celtic. I better pull out my celtic figure book again and figure out what I'm going to do! I don't think pearl will work because of the curve, so it may need to be marquetry. Thanks for all the input!
Tracy

Inlaying here too Tracy, will take a bit more time but you'll enjoy it more!

Serge

[QUOTE=John Mayes] I personally don't like it.... It just looks a little
strange to me....[/QUOTE]

Im with John....drop the burst. A matter of personal taste IMO. If you like
it keep it if you dont like it get rid of it.

Cheers Martin

Tracy, If it was me I would inlay also! Bursts are normally dark on dark colors, it just doesn't blend well! Even if you bursted up the side of the neck, it would still come off odd!

Any idea how it went off so bad?

Regrets, Bud!

Billy Dean Thomas

_________________
Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

I would rather do without the burst. A bit weird

_________________
Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

Tracy
I agree with John. I am not a fan of burst,even though I have a bursted neck
on a couple of my guitars.
I only did it to cover up a mistake like you, but I didn't have a laminated
neck and I had a dark guitar with 2 colors in the Mac ebony and burst just
blended the 2.   If you are going to stick with the burst, you pretty much
have to color the entire neck and coverup all of the lamination.
Go with the inlay idea. If you don't like that, you can always make another
neck.

_________________
Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

You could always do what greenfield does on his necks - they are a multipiece lam thru the length of the neck, but the heel is a single stacked on piece of mahogany. Lots of classicals are done in a similar way, ou can see a different piece glued in the neck, but the heel is one piece stacked over top of that. It looks fine. I prefer the look of the lines running thru the heel, but I wouldnt have done it as a glue on - needs to be done all in one piece for each lam.

I agree the burst looks weird, I would change the heel. Could be done in a couple hours at most once glued on.

_________________
Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

[QUOTE=TonyKarol] You could always do what greenfield does on his
necks - they are a multipiece lam thru the length of the neck, but the heel
is a single stacked on piece of mahogany. Lots of classicals are done in a
similar way, ou can see a different piece glued in the neck, but the heel is
one piece stacked over top of that. It looks fine. I prefer the look of the
lines running thru the heel, but I wouldnt have done it as a glue on -
needs to be done all in one piece for each lam.

I agree the burst looks weird, I would change the heel. Could be done in
a couple hours at most once glued on.[/QUOTE]

now there's a good one! Nice thinking Tony.

_________________
John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

Cut the heel block off and attach a new one. Simple fix.

[QUOTE=Robbie O'Brien] Cut the heel block off and attach a new one. Simple fix.[/QUOTE]

Been there, done that, got the tee shirt. Dave Rector38854.4233449074

_________________
Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Okay, this is what I'll do...I'll try the inlay first, if turns out crappy, then I'll cut the heel off and glue on a new block. I'm trying to avoid this because I would have to install new bolt inserts as this is a butt joint. Still easy enough, but still a pain when you are this close to being finished Thanks for all the great advice guys.
Tracy

I wanted to answer a few questions and make a few observations before closing this topic out. Some had mentioned what went wrong in the first place. I think it is important to explain to all the other newbies like myself what went wrong, and what I learned, so that others won't make the same mistake.

The main problem was that the neck blank was not square after the all the laminations were done. I did check it with a square, but not at all the angles. One of the angles was off by about 2mm. So after cutting the blocks of the heel, when I stacked them, they were crooked. I fixed this by sanding some off each side, and when I glued it up, the laminations were right on. Because it was out of square in the first place, it was still crooked towards the neck side of the heel. I didn't think anything of this because that side was going to go against the body. But as I carved more of the heel away, the laminations kept getting more and more off, so the laminations didn't line up.

You may be wondering...why didn't he just glue the scarf joint and heel, then slice down the middle and glue in the laminations? That would be the correct way to do this if you are using a scarf joint and stacked heel. The reason I didn't is because I didn't have a lamination board that was as tall as the heel. I should have just found a board that was tall enough to cover the heel, but I was in a hurry. Believe me, it won't happen again! So that is my story.

Now on to the fix. Yes, cutting the heel off and gluing on a block of mahogany would be the easiest thing to do in theory, but there are other problems I see by doing this. The good thing is that this is a butt joint with bolt inserts. The problem I see is that I will have to carefully cut the neck angle with the fret board attached before installing the bolt inserts. This would not be an easy task for me being a newbie. I don't have the confidence to tackle something like this. I know I could do it, but it would take me several days to get it right. To me, the easiest thing to do is to inlay a wooden design into this area. Even with it being curved, it seems easier than taking the heel off. I'll update you when I'm done. Thanks for all the help!
Tracy