My first guitar has a three string 1 1/2 x 3/4" thick birch neck with an
oak fretboard (simply what they had at home depot - oak was a bad
choice, lots of rough softer grain to mess up those string bends I don't
tend to do anyhow). I ended up leaving the neck in the original
profile, just light rounding of the corners. I actually like the
feeling, to my surprise, and I'm afraid to take any off because it bends
from string pressure just a tad already.
I'm building my second neck, this one a four stringer carved from one piece of 1 3/4" square hard maple. I'll add a decent rosewood or ebony fingerboard as well, just haven't decided. With the tiny bodies of a cbg a truss rod would have to be longer than normal for a guitar but shorter than for a bass (unless I do some funky stuff inside the box). The cheapest rods stewmac carries are plenty long enough and are sold uncut and unthreaded, requiring a tap (extra $5 from them). That would work, but I'm unclear on a few things:
First, how may of you add truss rods? Any advice, warnings, comments or preferences? What do you use?
How deep does the channel need to be routed for a traditional simple compression-only rod? If I make it deeper (farther from fretboard), should I glue in a strip of wood to fill in the void between fretboard and rod? Or should I just route enough so that it fits, no more? It seems it would work more efficiently if deep (matter of leverage) but that big channel seems to spell trouble for me.
How about using just a non-adjustable length of metal, like the square hollow stock stewmac and lmi sell?
Anything I forgot to ask?
Thanks!