Minimum neck thickness behind truss rod

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Does anyone know what the minimum safe thickness of wood sitting behind a truss rod might be? I'm using maple and wenge on two necks and I'd like to shape them as thin as reasonably safe to prevent the truss rod from punching through the wood.

[John Ruiz]

It seems like I read at Project Guitar that there needs to be about an 1/8th inch behind the rod, but wait for someone to confirm/deny that one, as I haven't finished building my first neck yet!

[tjclem]

Good luck I have gone through the back of 3 necks trying to get them too thin. Lots of wasted time and $.. .t

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Mine is going to be 3/16" behind the truss rod. I think that this should be fine.

[Suburban]

mine are 3-4 mm. no probs.

[pilotjones]

Originally Posted by tjclem

Good luck I have gone through the back of 3 necks trying to get them too thin. Lots of wasted time and $.. .t

Did you break through to the channel when you were shaping, or was it OK until you tweaked the rod, and then it broke through?

[Scott French]

Originally Posted by tjclem

Good luck I have gone through the back of 3 necks trying to get them too thin. Lots of wasted time and $.. .t

Some dial calipers could have saved you a lot of time and money... not to mention guessing. If you have the thickness of the fingerboard at the center, and the depth of the slot then there's no reason to carve through the back of the neck (assuming that's what happened).

When it comes to neck carving, it's best to work in .###" format. .125" is what I go with behind the trussros slot, but I have pushed it a little past and been fine. With a .250" fingerboard and .375" truss rod slot (lmi double action) you can carve .750" neck thickness at the thinnest point.

[Geoff St. Germaine]

Originally Posted by Scott French

Some dial calipers could have saved you a lot of time and money... not to mention guessing. If you have the thickness of the fingerboard at the center, and the depth of the slot then there's no reason to carve through the back of the neck (assuming that's what happened).

When it comes to neck carving, it's best to work in .###" format. .125" is what I go with behind the trussros slot, but I have pushed it a little past and been fine. With a .250" fingerboard and .375" truss rod slot (lmi double action) you can carve .750" neck thickness at the thinnest point.

I'm going for roughly .75" (19mm). I put everything in inches here, but I'm running in mm. The fretboard is 6mm, truss rod is the lmii one, so 9.5mm which leaves 4.5mm for me to get 19mm. I think that this should be good. Dial calipers are key for this.

[tjclem]

Carving not adjusting the rod......t