How precise when setting the neck to the body at the 14th fret?

First build. Plan calls for setting the neck onto the body at the 14th fret. I am a skinny 2 mm long. I could sand that radiused end of the neck down a little bit more and bring that in. That would also help a problem that I found in regard to the location of the bridge plate. As it is the saddle would sit almost to the front edge of that bridge plate. I could glue additional wood at the front edge of that bridge plate. Not sure if that is the right way to do that.

I really do want to do this to the best of my ability. Yes I realize that I'm a newbie. I'm aware that I've had very little experience in woodworking and none to this point in building an instrument.. But I will take the time to do this if that's important.

I welcome your thoughts.

That's way off. Fix it right, and don't mess with bridge location- you're instrument is already braced and closed, yes?

If you have enough room at the headstock, you could get creative there, which would be better than a body compromise.

Get it closer.....and I'd be concerned that the bridge patch is that far back that you would almost be missing it. In most plans the bridge patch would extend in front of the bridge by about 5mm, with your saddle being about 3mm further back from the front edge of the bridge.

Heck you could even make it a 13th fret instrument, some luthiers make 13 fret guitars to straddle the qualities of a 12th and 14th fret instrument. Some ukulele's are built without a bridge patch. Unless you are planing on selling it or the type of person that look at it and it will bug them you have different options. The two important things are getting the scale length right and the neck angle.

printer2 said:

Heck you could even make it a 13th fret instrument, some luthiers make 13 fret guitars to straddle the qualities of a 12th and 14th fret instrument. Some ukulele's are built without a bridge patch. Unless you are planing on selling it or the type of person that look at it and it will bug them you have different options. The two important things are getting the scale length right and the neck angle.

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Thank you.

I can live with most things if they aren't within my ability to fix.

Not sure what to say about neck angle since the LMI plan doesn't address that. I've radiused the top on a 20' dish.

Kekani said:

That's way off. Fix it right, and don't mess with bridge location- you're instrument is already braced and closed, yes?

If you have enough room at the headstock, you could get creative there, which would be better than a body compromise.

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Thanks, Kekani. The box is still open so I can do some modifications.

Allen said:

Get it closer.....and I'd be concerned that the bridge patch is that far back that you would almost be missing it. In most plans the bridge patch would extend in front of the bridge by about 5mm, with your saddle being about 3mm further back from the front edge of the bridge.

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Allen,

It may be that the plan puts that bridge patch in the right spot. But I deviated from the plan by not realizing how important it was to have a flat surface rather than radiused at the top of the body where it joins the neck. I had to mess around with that to match the neck up and that might have shortened that distance up by as much as 3 mm.

Thank you, folks. I think what I'm going to do is sand the end of that neck heel closer to where it should have been. This is a bolt-on with a barrel nut vertically in the heel and I feel like losing a couple millimeters of depth shouldn't be a problem.

I'd sand the top of the headstock, which will shorten the length of the fretboard area. If the headstock gets too thin just use a thicker cap to make up the difference. Placing a fret right at the body joint is pure convention. You could leave it as it is if it doesn't bother you. There's a good chance that no one else will even notice. Just don't point it out. Assuming that an instrument plays good (and in tune) everything else you do is right, right up to the moment you want to please someone else.

jcalkin said:

I'd sand the top of the headstock, which will shorten the length of the fretboard area. If the headstock gets too thin just use a thicker cap to make up the difference. Placing a fret right at the body joint is pure convention. You could leave it as it is if it doesn't bother you. There's a good chance that no one else will even notice. Just don't point it out. Assuming that an instrument plays good (and in tune) everything else you do is right, right up to the moment you want to please someone else.

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There's some good perspective! Thank you. One advantage of sanding that neck shorter is that the issue of the saddle location will get better.