This is really well explained, except for one omission - it’s doesn’t seem to account for string action. Following this precisely will result in strings which touch the fret wires won’t it? I assume this is corrected by adjusting the saddles but this would imply the degree of accuracy is not as critical as you suggest?
Thank you for this in-depth information throughout the whole build. I could agree that there are things that I will miss out on, but I feel, watching these kinds of videos will definitely set me up for success in building guitars.
Hey Chris, thanks for sharing your knowledge but i was just wondering why you measure the thickness of the neck at around the A or B string and not from the centre where it would be thickest? I have been measuring my necks at the thickest point and measuring my bridge thickness with the saddles on the deck. You got me thinking now. Thanks again for the videos and i hope your winter is being kind to you over there.
Great vid. Later this week I will be cutting my first neck pocket. I have a machinist friend with several Bridgeports. Routers can get away from me to easily.
How do you reduce the depth of a used guitar neck HEEL without reducing the depth of the pocket? I'm adding a Squire neck to a 1970's mini Harmony body as a travel guitar.
Great video, thanks a lot. Just that I fully understand this, you do not add the string action to the equation? Is this because you are lowering the strings at bridge to the Maximum and adjust the action later by raising the individual strings?
Sort of. I raise the saddles about 1/16" off the baseplate so the strings are slightly above the frets. Too low to be playable, but you'll have enough adjustment range to get the action you want, high or low. Keep in mind that I am building guitars for other people. Since I can't always know what kind of action they'll prefer, I have to make sure they'll have room to adjust the string height for whatever they desire.
Thanks for this! I'm at this stage with my first build, and I actually started doing your exact method prior to watching this. I looked into Fender style neck pockets, and I noticed that a lot of them are a standard 5/8" deep. This feels very shallow to me - (with my setup, using the method you mention I need around 7/8" deep). I'm inclined to do your method instead, but I am nervous there may be some other variable I'm not thinking of that warrants a 5/8" pocket. The main concern being the distance between the strings and the body (or pickguard if you have one). I'm curious if the Fender spec does 5/8" in part because folks wanted more space there for playability? Im probably super over-thinking things, and my instinct tells me that wouldn't be a problem, but I'm still paranoid. . . Anywho, thanks again for sharing your expertise!
I do a recess for my tune o matic bridges and have wondered why it's not more common to see. Maybe I'll figure it out in the future as I have only built 5 or so guitars.
I’m not sure why you said that before measuring the bottom of string at the bridge saddle that you first lower one saddle so that it’s flush with the bridge plate then slightly raise the saddle next to it then measure. Why is this necessary and if you do that to 2 saddles then which is the one you measure? The one flush with the bridge plate or the one beside it that is slightly higher? I’m very confused. Thank you! My calipers arrive tomorrow and I have to attempt to fix an uneven guitar neck at the neck pocket on my 90’s Squier Strat that had paint from the factory inside the neck pocket which I then sanded out and now the neck is all out of whack and completely uneven
How thin can you make the material that supports the bottom of the neck pocket (ie from the bottom of the body to the bottom of the neck) without running into issues of possible breakage? Say for a typical strat style pocket with an alder body and maple neck?
I have three Strats with between 7/8" up to 1-1/8" of body wood under the neck heels. Why the variation? They're mass-production guitars, that's why. I recommend an inch.
Hi Chris, with that measuring, don't you risk to get the fretboard a little below of the top of the body? What measure do you have between the thickness of the fretboard plus the fret wire? Is it less than 8mm? Thanks
An average fretboard thickness would be 3/16" or around 5mm, and a tall, jumbo fret would be ~.050" or ~1.5mm so it would be close. Unless someone made a thicker fretboard than normal this works and the fretboard will be sitting just above the body.
At the very least, I always do a full scale side view drawing of the guitar to calculate the depths. That way I can check the string action over the frets as well as the relationship between the tremolo block and the back of the body. To take it a step further I also build a full scale 3D model of the guitar for more precise analysis.
@@HighlineGuitars I'm not good at computer programs like that though. Maybe down the line you could do a video hands on kinda thing? Thanks for the reply.
GREAT VIDEO CHRIS... however. PLEASE RE-DO for clarity. This is a critical measurement and I for one need a CLEARER explanation to calculate the depth of neck pocket before I ruin my first guitar build, something I've put hundreds of hours into. YOUR VIDEOS HAVE BEEN INCREDIBLY HELPFUL... THANK YOU 😇 🙏🙌
I have a prs style kit. The neck sits which looks like a quarter inch above the body. How would I determine either shaving down the neck or deepening pocket. Also, you did the neck thickness in relation to bridge and action for appropriate thickness. But I need the opposite calculation if you were to measure the pocket itself and determine the thickness of the neck. Sorry it's alot. Hopefully I made it clear. Just trying to get my head around this.
Take the string height at the bridge when the saddles are as low as they can be adjusted and add that measurement to the depth of the pocket. That will give you the neck + fretboard + fret height measurement you need. I would subtract about a 1/16" from this number to get the final neck thickness. Example: Neck pocket depth (1") + string height at the bridge (.30") - .0625" = a neck heel thickness of 1.2375"
If you would like your reading to be as accurate as possible, and since you have a digital caliper, take your measurement of the bridge, make that your “zero” starting point and then measure your neck. No calculations required.
i am routing by a stanley (non electric) hand router plane and paring chisels and sand paper and files, not a power electric router- I tried this technique on a tele neck pocket and it was far too high. Please advise.
I routed it further today, the pocket now sits at 17.50mm deep and is square with the neck when it seats in the body pocket also sits with no rocking. After inspecting the neck heel dimensons with digital callipers.. I have found that the thickness has a neck up bow angle built in on the back of the neck heel... there is 0.50mm difference between the necks heel thickness being thicker towards the tuner side of neck heel. fretboard is a 10 inch radius and is sitting 12.2mm from the body with no pickguard not including the height of the frets. To me it just looks quite high.. I am not sure whether I should try to shave that 0.5mm away from the neck heel and get rid of that up bow angle(despite this the straight edge from frets to saddles make good contact at 30% or so saddle height) it or just leave it and wait and see how it plays once assembled. With the pickguard on it gives a 7.8mm height from fingerboard wood to pickguard top. Thanks please advise
@@HighlineGuitars wana thank you... I corrected the neck heel angle to zero or dead flat by hand and it sits better. that seemed to fix it. thanks for helping us all when ever we ask questions and making the lesson videos.. thanks alot
Can you give any advice on neck angle for set neck guitars. I bought a kit..a pricey one, and the neck heel frets are touching the strings. I have the bridge jacked just to get rid of buzz. The info i have at the moment is that the distance from the bottom of fretboard where it overhangs is .250" from top of the body. Its a LP Jr. Set neck build. Thank you.
I've watched an other method where he would allign the neck with the centerline and then with rulers would measure the height, I would find this a better way than measuring with calipers. It's more accurate, maybe not that necessary with this style of bridge though
"The formula I use for determining the depth of the neck pocket is pretty simple. I take the overall thickness of my neck heel - including the fret wire, then I measure the distance between the top of the guitar body and bottom of the string where it meets the bridge saddle, then I subtract it from the vertices of the third moon of Jupiter." Tele poccket is 5/8" deep. Time to rock!
Been waiting for a video like this and timing couldn't be more perfect as I am in the middle of a build. Cheers!
As always, very helpful information and clearly explained.
This is the video I was looking for. Thank you so much
This is really well explained, except for one omission - it’s doesn’t seem to account for string action. Following this precisely will result in strings which touch the fret wires won’t it? I assume this is corrected by adjusting the saddles but this would imply the degree of accuracy is not as critical as you suggest?
Thank you for this in-depth information throughout the whole build. I could agree that there are things that I will miss out on, but I feel, watching these kinds of videos will definitely set me up for success in building guitars.
You've solved a long-running mystery for me. Thanks.
Thank you, Chris! You went more in depth with this video, and always appreciate these invaluable tips.
Glad it was helpful!
Perfect, I pulled my project out. Need to adjust the pocket, perfect info.
Always so understandable!
Thank you so much man, this has absolutely saved me from having to guesstimate. Love your videos, thank you
Excellent video Chris!! Thanks again. 👍
Thank you Chris for this valuable information.
Gotmine ready today. Time to finish this thing out!
Thank you Chris. Wonderful advice.
looking forward to the video about Tremolo Neckpockets
Hey Chris, thanks for sharing your knowledge but i was just wondering why you measure the thickness of the neck at around the A or B string and not from the centre where it would be thickest? I have been measuring my necks at the thickest point and measuring my bridge thickness with the saddles on the deck. You got me thinking now. Thanks again for the videos and i hope your winter is being kind to you over there.
This was super helpful. Thanks for posting!!
Glad it was helpful!
Great vid. Later this week I will be cutting my first neck pocket. I have a machinist friend with several Bridgeports. Routers can get away from me to easily.
Be weary of things that look easy. It always the little detail that get you.
Very helpful information, thank you.
Glad it was helpful!
Great idea
How do you reduce the depth of a used guitar neck HEEL without reducing the depth of the pocket? I'm adding a Squire neck to a 1970's mini Harmony body as a travel guitar.
I see Warmoth uses same depth of pocket for tremolo or hardtail bridge no matter which on you decide to use. I thought that was strange.
As always, thank you for utilization of valuable time to share your information in these videos! 🤘
Most decimal places is best decimal places. 😈
Great video, thanks a lot. Just that I fully understand this, you do not add the string action to the equation? Is this because you are lowering the strings at bridge to the Maximum and adjust the action later by raising the individual strings?
Sort of. I raise the saddles about 1/16" off the baseplate so the strings are slightly above the frets. Too low to be playable, but you'll have enough adjustment range to get the action you want, high or low. Keep in mind that I am building guitars for other people. Since I can't always know what kind of action they'll prefer, I have to make sure they'll have room to adjust the string height for whatever they desire.
Thanks for this! I'm at this stage with my first build, and I actually started doing your exact method prior to watching this. I looked into Fender style neck pockets, and I noticed that a lot of them are a standard 5/8" deep. This feels very shallow to me - (with my setup, using the method you mention I need around 7/8" deep). I'm inclined to do your method instead, but I am nervous there may be some other variable I'm not thinking of that warrants a 5/8" pocket. The main concern being the distance between the strings and the body (or pickguard if you have one). I'm curious if the Fender spec does 5/8" in part because folks wanted more space there for playability? Im probably super over-thinking things, and my instinct tells me that wouldn't be a problem, but I'm still paranoid. . . Anywho, thanks again for sharing your expertise!
dragon looks amazing!
I do a recess for my tune o matic bridges and have wondered why it's not more common to see. Maybe I'll figure it out in the future as I have only built 5 or so guitars.
Tradition I guess.
I’m not sure why you said that before measuring the bottom of string at the bridge saddle that you first lower one saddle so that it’s flush with the bridge plate then slightly raise the saddle next to it then measure. Why is this necessary and if you do that to 2 saddles then which is the one you measure? The one flush with the bridge plate or the one beside it that is slightly higher? I’m very confused. Thank you! My calipers arrive tomorrow and I have to attempt to fix an uneven guitar neck at the neck pocket on my 90’s Squier Strat that had paint from the factory inside the neck pocket which I then sanded out and now the neck is all out of whack and completely uneven
It's to account for the fretboard's radius.
@@HighlineGuitars thank you sir, I appreciate your response.
Perfect, thanks.
Great information!
How thin can you make the material that supports the bottom of the neck pocket (ie from the bottom of the body to the bottom of the neck) without running into issues of possible breakage? Say for a typical strat style pocket with an alder body and maple neck?
I have three Strats with between 7/8" up to 1-1/8" of body wood under the neck heels. Why the variation? They're mass-production guitars, that's why. I recommend an inch.
Would this formula work for a three saddle Tele bridge as well?
Hi Chris, with that measuring, don't you risk to get the fretboard a little below of the top of the body? What measure do you have between the thickness of the fretboard plus the fret wire? Is it less than 8mm?
Thanks
An average fretboard thickness would be 3/16" or around 5mm, and a tall, jumbo fret would be ~.050" or ~1.5mm so it would be close. Unless someone made a thicker fretboard than normal this works and the fretboard will be sitting just above the body.
My fretboards are about 6mm thick along the centerline. The bottom of the fretboard ends up about 1.6mm out of the body.
exactly what i wanted to know
Thank you so much sir for this tip... 🤗
Thank you for this video
I want to use tune o matic for a flat top guitar build, so could u give the height of the tune o matic bridge? Thank you!
About a 1/2.”
I'm using a Gotoh 510 tremolo Any pro advice on setting that up for correct depth?
At the very least, I always do a full scale side view drawing of the guitar to calculate the depths. That way I can check the string action over the frets as well as the relationship between the tremolo block and the back of the body. To take it a step further I also build a full scale 3D model of the guitar for more precise analysis.
@@HighlineGuitars I'm not good at computer programs like that though. Maybe down the line you could do a video hands on kinda thing? Thanks for the reply.
Thanks Chris !
You bet!
GREAT VIDEO CHRIS... however. PLEASE RE-DO for clarity. This is a critical measurement and I for one need a CLEARER explanation to calculate the depth of neck pocket before I ruin my first guitar build, something I've put hundreds of hours into. YOUR VIDEOS HAVE BEEN INCREDIBLY HELPFUL... THANK YOU 😇 🙏🙌
I don’t know how I can make it clearer.
nice, what about individual saddles? i plan to do a multiscale, would be the same method?
I used this method with my multiscale guitars.
@@HighlineGuitars Thanks, i will do it ;)
I have a prs style kit. The neck sits which looks like a quarter inch above the body. How would I determine either shaving down the neck or deepening pocket. Also, you did the neck thickness in relation to bridge and action for appropriate thickness. But I need the opposite calculation if you were to measure the pocket itself and determine the thickness of the neck. Sorry it's alot. Hopefully I made it clear. Just trying to get my head around this.
Take the string height at the bridge when the saddles are as low as they can be adjusted and add that measurement to the depth of the pocket. That will give you the neck + fretboard + fret height measurement you need. I would subtract about a 1/16" from this number to get the final neck thickness. Example: Neck pocket depth (1") + string height at the bridge (.30") - .0625" = a neck heel thickness of 1.2375"
@@HighlineGuitars thank you sir
What’s the name of the tool you used to measure?
Digital caliper.
@@HighlineGuitars thanks!
If you would like your reading to be as accurate as possible, and since you have a digital caliper, take your measurement of the bridge, make that your “zero” starting point and then measure your neck. No calculations required.
Are all hardtail bridge the same?
No. Some are taller than others and some are wider.
i am routing by a stanley (non electric) hand router plane and paring chisels and sand paper and files, not a power electric router-
I tried this technique on a tele neck pocket and it was far too high. Please advise.
Please clarify what advice you need.
I routed it further today, the pocket now sits at 17.50mm deep and is square with the neck when it seats in the body pocket also sits with no rocking.
After inspecting the neck heel dimensons with digital callipers.. I have found that the thickness has a neck up bow angle built in on the back of the neck heel... there is 0.50mm difference between the necks heel thickness being thicker towards the tuner side of neck heel.
fretboard is a 10 inch radius and is sitting 12.2mm from the body with no pickguard not including the height of the frets. To me it just looks quite high.. I am not sure whether I should try to shave that 0.5mm away from the neck heel and get rid of that up bow angle(despite this the straight edge from frets to saddles make good contact at 30% or so saddle height) it or just leave it and wait and see how it plays once assembled. With the pickguard on it gives a 7.8mm height from fingerboard wood to pickguard top.
Thanks please advise
@@ukguitaryogi2888 The only advice I can offer is you need to fix the heel. It needs to be a consistent thickness.
@@HighlineGuitars thanks, I came to that conclusion, thanks for clarification
@@HighlineGuitars wana thank you... I corrected the neck heel angle to zero or dead flat by hand and it sits better. that seemed to fix it. thanks for helping us all when ever we ask questions and making the lesson videos.. thanks alot
So I follow your math, but how did you determine the thickness of the neck heel to begin with?
The thickness is whatever I want it to be.
I wanted to like your video, Chris, but you have 666 likes and I ain't touching that!!! 👹
Thanks for the lesson!
Is it okay to be a little deeper, a 32nd off?
As long as the bridge height can be adjusted to accommodate.
@@HighlineGuitars thank you, Chris! Always appreciate your help and your videos
Can you give any advice on neck angle for set neck guitars. I bought a kit..a pricey one, and the neck heel frets are touching the strings. I have the bridge jacked just to get rid of buzz. The info i have at the moment is that the distance from the bottom of fretboard where it overhangs is .250" from top of the body. Its a LP Jr. Set neck build. Thank you.
Next time I install a TOM, I'll shoot a video.
@@HighlineGuitars Great. Thank you.
I've watched an other method where he would allign the neck with the centerline and then with rulers would measure the height, I would find this a better way than measuring with calipers. It's more accurate, maybe not that necessary with this style of bridge though
...is your love!
How thick is this body? Maybe it’s the camera angle, but it appears to be thicker than “normal.” Thanks!
What's normal? LOL.
@@HighlineGuitars Was guessing 1.75", chief. :)
@@philwhitmarsh7746 it’s 1.9” or a bit less than a Les Paul and a bit more than a Stratocaster.
In a perfect world, the top of the guitar body would stay flat. With a single slab, it will most likely move somewhat.
"The formula I use for determining the depth of the neck pocket is pretty simple. I take the overall thickness of my neck heel - including the fret wire, then I measure the distance between the top of the guitar body and bottom of the string where it meets the bridge saddle, then I subtract it from the vertices of the third moon of Jupiter."
Tele poccket is 5/8" deep. Time to rock!
Why does this not work with low profile tremolos?
Who said it doesn't?
@@HighlineGuitars you mentioned that tremolos require some geometrical calculations apart from this
That’s not saying it doesn’t work.
@@HighlineGuitars thank you very much 😊
Off topic. How thick that body is?
It is 1.9" thick. Between a Les Paul and a Stratocaster.
Shade tree guitars