PAINT YOUR OWN GUITAR

1. Lining Up Your Neck For A Floyd Rose Bridge

If you’re the kind of guy or gal who likes to swap necks, this is something that you’ll no doubt, come across if you use Floyd Rose bridges. (NOTE: does every guitar player own at least one Floyd Rose bridge or a licensed FR bridge?)

For my book, Project 5150, I customized a neck to look just like a Kramer neck with banana headstock. The Kramer body was already routed for the bridge, so all I had to do was bolt on the neck and I’d be good to go.

However, when putting on a new neck, you don’t just want to bolt it on; your strings have to line up PERFECTLY on that neck, otherwise, it’s going to play like SH*T, so you have to be real meticulous when doing something like this.

So, follow along – this is how I line up a neck for a body that’s already been routed for a Floyd Rose bridge.

Step 1: Using a C-clamp and some scrap pickguard pieces (left over from a Frankenstrat), I set up the neck so it’s in the neck cavity. Then, I take one piece of pickguard and place it under the body (FIG 1) with the other piece going on top of the neck (FIG 2). I then tighten the clamp making sure that the clamp is placed in a position so that I can pass strings from the tuning pegs to the bridge. The clamp is just snug at this point – I still have to be able to move the neck to position it correctly. (you don’t have to use the pickguard scraps. But make sure you use something underneath the clamp that won’t damage the finish.)

Step 2: With the neck snug, I place my bridge into its proper psoition and use one spring to hold it in place (FIG 3).

Step 3: It’s time to put a couple of strings on the neck to line up the neck properly. I start with my low E (FIG 4). I lock it in place on the bridge and then wind it around the tuning peg, but I’m not stringing it up to pitch; I’m merely tightening it enough so that the string is snug and there’s no slack.

Once that string’s in position, I do the same with the high E (FIG 5). I tighten it so it’s snug.

With both of the strings locked and snug, I can now move my neck until the neck is in the ideal position for me.

Personally, I like there to be a little bit more room on the high E than on the low E. I don’t play that much stuff up high on the low E, so as you can see in FIG 5, this is exactly how I’ve lined it up.

You may not want to do it this way and that’s perfectly fine. All I’m doing here is showing you an easy way to line up the neck. How much room you allow on each side is your decision.

Step 4: Once I’ve gotten the neck into the exact position I like, I then tighten the clamp so it’s tight… not ridiculously tight – just tight.

Step 5: With it in place, I then use my power drill and drill the holes that I can access. The clamp is blocking one of the holes so I leave that one. I drill three holes but I only mark the holes – I don’t drill them all the way (FIG 6). I’ll explain that in a sec.

Step 6: With the three holes drilled/marked, I remove the clamp and the neck. I then position the neck plate over the holes and mark the center of the final hole that needs to be drilled (FIG 7 & FIG 8)

Step 7: I set my drill press to the exact depth I need to drill the holes down to. I use the drill press over doing it by hand because the drill press is a perfect 90 degrees whereas, my hand may move out of position as I’m drilling, therefore making my hole crooked. Obviously, I don’t want that.

If you don’t have access to a drill press, then drill the holes to the depth they need to be with your power drill.

And there you have it.

I can then bolt my neck on and it’s absolutely perfect. The strings line up exactly as I wanted them to.

Next issue, I’ll show you how to line up and install a bridge if you don’t have the holes already drilled.