Square neck pocket

[fish man]

Anyone have a better idea than routing followed by chiseling?

[wilser]

there's a tool out there to square the corners out of routed mortises. I haven't used it, but looks primising ...I like my chisels, though:

http://www.woodcraft.com/family.aspx?familyid=4433

[mahrous]

you can go in horizontally (not vertical) to clean out the corners in a squarely manner.

its tricky! i have done it once before with a mortise machine ... but i ruined a bunch of pockets before i got it right.

use scrap wood and do it at your own risk.

[fish man]

Nah, I'll be fine with the chisels, I was just wondering if there was some kind of secret process I'd never head about that made it easy.

[JSPguitars]

I've wondered the same thing for a long time too.
Would most of you rather square the corners of the neck pocket as opposed to rounding the corners of the neck to match the pocket?
Probably a matter of aesthetics/appearance.......but just wondering.

[fish man]

Originally Posted by JSPguitars

I've wondered the same thing for a long time too.
Would most of you rather square the corners of the neck pocket as opposed to rounding the corners of the neck to match the pocket?
Probably a matter of aesthetics/appearance.......but just wondering.

The neck has a square heel, and of course the pocket isn't yet routed, so having no extra shaping to do on the neck heel is fairly appealing.
I'm more thinking in terms of precision, that it will be easier to match square corners than rounded ones. Time is not really an issue, so I'll probably just go bit by bit with the chisels and proceed very slowly. I don't really have much space to work with, the 24th fretline is quite close to the edge, and I don't really want to get to close to it with the heel edge.

[klocwerk]

Originally Posted by wilser

there's a tool out there to square the corners out of routed mortises. I haven't used it, but looks primising ...I like my chisels, though:

http://www.woodcraft.com/family.aspx?familyid=4433

I've got one of these actually, but haven't had a chance to use it yet.
Mine's made by Porter-Cable, I think it's the same one as this one.
It's got a spring-loaded right-angle cutter, with pins coming out to line it up to your existing edges. You whack it on the top with a hammer and the cutter pops out the bottom and gives you a perfect right angle.
They're designed to do hinges and such, so I'm not sure how deep it'll work. The cutter extends out a good .5" or more iirc, but I don't think you're going to get to the bottom of a deep neck/p'up pocket. Still, it should make for nice clean lines where they're visible, plus Amazon.com has them really cheap now and then. I think I paid $5-7 for mine.

I'll give it a shot as soon as I can and report back for you all.

[Suburban]

The Woodcraft thing is great, but don't expect it to perform any deeper than a few millimeters. I wouldn't try any deeper than 3, possibly 5 mm in a hard wood application.
Rout 5 mm, cut the corner, route again, cut...5 times or so. That's the cost of perfection...

I keep with the chisels.