Testing the neck angle before gluing on the back

[Mitch]

As a first time builder (and over analyzer), I bolted on the neck to help me visualize all the angles, and to see if anything was radically wrong before glueing on the back. This is a stew mac kit and the cardboard inner "mold" has been removed.

The neck is flush to the top, and I clamped a straight edge to the neck to see where the neck "projects to" at the saddle location. As you can see in the picture, the gap at the saddle location is 3/16". From watching John's neck fitting videos, it seems that this gap is a bit to large.

The humidity in my basement is 55% (my humidi"fire" got recalled). So, I assume that the gap would be even larger when the humidity drops, and the top flattens.

Being that there is no mold, I can flex the neck block when I glue the back on to make this gap smaller.

Is this gap too large? Should I try to make a small correction at this point? Any other angles or dimensions I should check before gluing the back on?

Thanks,

Mitch

[tippie53]

you should be 3/32 nominal so 1/16 to 1/8 would be acceptable

[Mitch]

Thanks John. One other question: Bill Cory's book says to make sure the tail block and neck block are parallel. Why is this critical?

Mitch

[tippie53]

they set up the sides to be square to the guitars center
this helps with the neck set later

[ruby@magpage.com]

Mitch

John is right, but another way to think of it is that the guitar plans are drawn with all of the neck angles and clearances and these two blocks parallel, so if you can get them to be parallel in real life, you stand a better chance of getting the all the rest of it right.

I feel your pain on this

Ed Minch