Part 5: Deep Pockets

The most nerve-racking part of this build - and not uncoincidently the most important part of building the guitar - was routing the neck pocket.





The neck pocket is the nitch carved out of the body where the neck is attached (in this case screwed to the body). It is usually around 3/4 of an inch deep but can be more or less depending on how thick your neck is. Having never done this before, I decided to use the Squier guitar body that I bought (this was the one time when buying the 3D template came in handy) to mark off on the neck how deep the pocket should be.






I put the Squier neck in the squier body and then took a mechanical pencil and marked off how much of the neck sticks out of the pocket. You then take a very precise mesuring instrument (something with 1/32 and 1/64 marks - 1/16th isn't going to cut it) and mesure how deep the pocket is by measuring what doesn't stick above your pencil mark. This is the eventual depth you will set your router bit to - thus creating the correct depth for the pocket. Again, with routers it is better (and safer) to do several successive passes. At least that's what I tell myself to justify the amount of time I spent on this...

So, how am I going to do several passes with the router without botching up the pocket shape (never mind depth)? Why, another template of course! This one is easy, Take some MDF (or plexiglass or plywood) and trace the area of the neck that sits on the body. I made a mark on the neck (again with a mechanical pencil) where the neck sticks out from the body. The easiest way to do this is to put the neck on the original body and make a mark where the body and neck meet.
You probably want to take good measurments if you don't plan to do things the way I did them (buying a squier to use as a template).

So, why was this pocket the most nerve-racking part of the construction? A couple of reasons...

The pocket is made at the edge of the wood - where chipping the wood is easiest. A router will naturally chip large chunks out of a piece of wood - out of spite. (okay it just seems that way).
The pocket is also made right at the glue joint - which seemed scary to me but I've been assured that at this point the glue is as strong as the wood - so no biggie.
But the biggest reason is that the way the neck fits into the pocket defines how well the guitar will play. If the neck sits in the pocket at a left or right angle the strings may not fret well (the strings could over-hang the neck in worst-case situations). If the neck sits poorly in the pocket there could be dead spots on the neck that don't ring out - or just as bad the action may be forever too high (this would be if the neck bent up or down at the pocket. And finally, if the pocket is too big (read I sneezed at the wrong time and made a "V" shaped pocket instead of a "U" shaped pocket) the neck will never correctly transfer the vibrations necesary for good tone or decent sustain. The goal is to have the neck fit in the pocket joint snugly - without screws holding it in place. I was unsuccessful in that respect - but the neck fits pretty good for someone who was shaking like he had the Delerium Tremens the whole time I was using the router.








It is also worth noting that after I finished making the neck pocket I sold the Squier body on craigslist. I think I got $30 for it. I included the body (still in near new condition), the Squier bridge, the neck pickup, and all of the guts (tone pot, volume pot, input jack, etc.). I kept the neck, the bridge pickup (for the short term - I ended up replacing that too) some of the hardware pieces (cover plate, tuning keys, strap buttons, neck plate, etc). All in all, between what it would cost me to buy the above items and what I got back from the sale of the body - I probably didn't spend that much more than I would have if I bought a neck (sight unseen), hardware, and guitar body templates. I ended up feeling okay about it. And I still have the templates that I made in case I want to do this again.