Reprofiling wide guitar neck

[gstring]

Hi All.

I have a guitar that is 1 13/16ths at the nut. It gets wider as it goes up the neck which is normal. However I feel that it spreads a little too wide. There is enough space between the edge of the neck and the Low E and High E strings to narrow the profile.

Is this a big job ? Do all the frets have to be removed ? There is no binding on the neck. I would be happy with removing 1/16th from each side.

Is this done by sanding ? The neck is bolt on.

Thanks for your thoughts and recommendations.

daniel

[runamuck]

I've done it on a classical neck that was 2 1/8" wide and took off slightly more than you're planning to. I did not remove any frets but just filed them. I think it took me an hour and a half or so not including finish.

[Rudy4]

Originally Posted by gstring

Hi All.

I have a guitar that is 1 13/16ths at the nut. It gets wider as it goes up the neck which is normal. However I feel that it spreads a little too wide. There is enough space between the edge of the neck and the Low E and High E strings to narrow the profile.

Is this a big job ? Do all the frets have to be removed ? There is no binding on the neck. I would be happy with removing 1/16th from each side.

Is this done by sanding ? The neck is bolt on.

Thanks for your thoughts and recommendations.

daniel

Having a removable neck makes it a fairly easy job, although it can be done on a glued neck joint guitar as well.

I've done a few guitars with unbound necks. You can see a step by step guide to the process I used for converting a mini-Strat to electric octave mandolin, including narrowing of the fretted neck, on Martin Stillion's eMando.com site HERE.

[Fathand]

I have a similar project with a banjo neck that was tapered incorrectly, my plan is to remove frets then use a mdf template with correct taper and router with pattern bit.

I'm pretty sure frets would chew up the bit. If your filing by hand you might get away with leaving them in but the template and router gives you easy accuracy.