The Neck
This is my work log of how work with the neck progressed:
When doing this, do not forget to think about the body too. There are many things to keep in mind, one example is how the distance of the neck effects the location of the bridge. I made both the body and the neck at the same time.
Before you commence with this you will need to choose what dimensions you want for your neck, you should also consider if you want to use a truss rod or not. I decided the dimensions during the work, but I do not recommend it.
20th of November:
Today I have spent some time trying to get a picture of the distances to the different frets. I will then try to saw on the markings on the paper, so that I do not need to mark the fretboard itself. (Yes, I am a bit lazy).
Here is a table of the distances.
Fret number |
Inches |
Centimeters |
|---|---|---|
1 |
1,04955941 |
2,6658809 |
2 |
2,040211068 |
5,182136112 |
3 |
2,975261241 |
7,557163551 |
4 |
3,857830627 |
9,798889793 |
5 |
4,690864773 |
11,91479652 |
6 |
5,477143901 |
13,91194551 |
7 |
6,219292192 |
15,79700217 |
8 |
6,91978654 |
17,57625781 |
9 |
7,580964823 |
19,25565065 |
10 |
8,2050337 |
20,8407856 |
11 |
8,79407598 |
22,33695299 |
12 |
9,350057571 |
23,74914623 |
13 |
9,874834045 |
25,08207847 |
14 |
10,3701568 |
26,34019833 |
15 |
10,83767903 |
27,52770474 |
16 |
11,27896101 |
28,64856096 |
17 |
11,69547552 |
29,70650781 |
18 |
12,08861266 |
30,70507615 |
19 |
12,45968452 |
31,64759868 |
20 |
12,80992954 |
32,53722103 |
21 |
13,14051664 |
33,37691227 |
22 |
13,45254916 |
34,16947487 |
23 |
13,75706849 |
34,91755396 |
24 |
14,02505757 |
35,62364623 |
(The scale length is 18,7", with 17.817)
When I print it out, it seems like I get the wrong distances, so I will have to see if I can solve the problem.
23rd of November:
Today much have happened, the neck and head have been sawed out.
The fretboard has also been planed.
Here are some pictures:
The head, made from the extra bits left over from the body.
As you can see, I left an extra bit of the wood so that the neck can be tightly fitted into the slot.
The thickness of the fretboard is 0,7cm
I also noted a potential problem with the neck, as you can see on the following picture. Even if I had though of it before I could not have done anything about it as I would have needed to either decrease the angle or increase the thickness of the head. The later is not possible as I am stuck with my tuning pegs, and the earlier would be to go against the structure of the balalajka.
To solve this I will have to add some extra oak under the fretboard.
24th of November:
Today I started to sand with sanding the neck a bit, I also began to fit the neck into the socket, but I will have to work much more on this...
25th of November:
Today I worked with fitting the neck into the body socket. In width it fits there now, but I have to make it go in farther and I also got to remove some oak at the bottom.
26th of November:
Today I continued to work with the neck and the head. I have decided to go with a regular plug since a screw woultn't fit so good.
![info[at]balalajka.com](../../../home/info@balalajka.png){kind=small}