Production shops create most electric guitars out of two major wood components. The body which can be a single block machined or several pieces glued up into a solid block, semi-hollow, or like an acoustic guitar virtually completely hollow. The second major component is the neck. In many cases the neck is bolted on, in some it is glued.
My research led me to believe most luthiers like the separate neck because A) it provides the possibility of adjustment if necessary, B) it allows repair if the head or neck are broken and C) to reduce waste of wood. Personally, with an understanding of manufacturing and business, I believe the primary driving factor in most cases is C). It’s all about the money and speed of manufacturing which also equals money.
Then I found many of the bass guitars have through-body construction where the neck was effectively part of the body because it is glued between two “wings” that become the body. This still reduces the waste of material and speeds production, but it undermines the argument for future repair or adjustment.
I’m not making a guitar for sale, if money or speed were an issue I wouldn’t be making a guitar, period. So I decided to make my guitar from a single piece of Maple for the challenge, the strength and the fun of it.
The complication due to a single piece guitar is the height of the body relative to the fret board. The fret board sits about 1/4″ above the neck surface. If using a traditional style telecaster bridge this might be OK. Of course, I had decided early on to use the ABR styled adjustable bridge which sits higher. As a result I needed a larger gap between the fret board surface and the face of the body.
To accomplish this, I built a surface planing jig. This consisted of a piece of MDF to serve as the base. Mounted to the base are two fences rising 3″. This was built large enough to house the entire body of the guitar and then some.
Next I mounted a custom base on my router that would span both fences with enough overhang to allow the router to be passed from one side to the other.
The guitar body was clamped in place. Setting the appropriate depth on the router it was a simple matter of slowly working off the material. I left about a 1/2″ of material next to the neck to be shaped and sanded using various dremel bits, small rasps and files.
