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I'm at the point that I need to decide what profile to carve the neck to. Does anybody have any particular thoughts about how to decide that?

"Use the profile that you like."

Sure, but do different profiles have any general characteristics that can be enumerated? For example, "I sharp V profile is good if...." "A broad U profile is good if...."

Any takers, or am I asking an impossible question?

it all depends
maybe this can help you decide.

Thanks John. It's a point of departure, anyway.

I made a template up copying the modified V profile above. It certainly made the carving process easier but when I was doing the final sanding I ran into a problem. I noticed a faint line in on the back of the neck. As I sanded that spot the line became more noticeable. That's when it hit me. It's the bottom of the cut out for the truss rod.
I'm using a Steward-McDonald truss rod that calls for a 7/16 by 13/32 channel. the channel showed through right below the first fret. This is a 000 with a short scale length. I let the truss rod extend about 1 1/4 inches beyond the body end of the neck. I also cut a channel with a square bottom.
Has anyone else run into a similar problem? I think this truss rod is too big for this neck profile.

Gerry

Gerry wrote:.
Has anyone else run into a similar problem? I think this truss rod is too big for this neck profile.

There have been a lot of comments on the depth required by the Stew-Mac truss rod on other forums. I think they've re-designed them to make them thinner, so that the channel can be shallower.

You might be able to laminate a piece of wood to the bottom of the neck and re-carve the neck, but you're depending on the integrity of the glue. I think I'd trust epoxy, but none of the conventional wood glues. You might be better off starting from scratch with a new neck blank. (And I know what a pain that is ... I've just finished carving a neck to replace one on a kit I built about eight years ago, where the neck developed a nice twist last year. It was a Blue Mountain kit, out of Oregon. They're no longer in business, and no wonder.)

The only fix I can think of, which probably wouldn't work, is to cut a groove deep enough to remove the truss rod from the bottom. Get a thinner truss rod, insert it, then make a filler strip and glue it in. This assumes 1) you can find a significantly thinner truss rod so you end up with a decent amount of gluing surface for the sides of the filler strip and 2) you can glue it sufficiently well to resist thee pressurer uoff the truss rod.

I don't use the stew mac rod they have failed on my in the past. I use the martin style rods. They use a lower cut and are manufactured in a way that doesn't weaken the threaded rods.

Thanks for the replies. I can make another neck and use the Martin truss rod.

What size channel do I need for the Martin rod? Does the Martin rod need a fillet above the rod?