Carbon fiber neck build

[Jeroen914]

I really wanted a carbon fiber (or graphite) neck for some time
Then, when I finally decided to cough up the dough for a Status replacement neck, the guy from Status fell ill and quit making 'em
(really hope he recovers)
I looked for other options, but didn't find many, let alone one that fit my wishes
So... while looking further this christmas, I stumbled upon quite a few threads by @MPU
Needless to say, that put all sorts of wrong ideas into my head

I had already viewed a gazillion youtube vids on carbon (cause I'm a car guy and a tinkerer) as the stuff always fascinated me
Long story short, after a bunch of sleepless nights pondering over this thing I bit the bullet and ordered a bunch of materials last week

I've dabbed about with some polyester and fiberglass here and there before, but nothing major and definately not CF/epoxy
So here goes nothing

Plan is to copy the nech on my '93 EBMM
Over simplified, I'm roughly following @MPU 's builds, I'll mold the (back) of the neck, fill it with foam, glue on a board with a trussrod cavity and glue a fretboard to that
Figured I'd start with something small and relatively easy, just to get my toes wet and feel the water
So I started with the trussrod board

Took a piece of MDF, covered it with signing vinyl and positioned the trussrod onto it
Then covered the trussrod with packing tape (next time I'll use vinyl fot that too, as the packing tape left a nasty glue residue on the TR)
Although the epoxy is not supposed to stick to the vinyl or tape, just to be sure, I covered everything with some spray-on wax/release agent



Next I cut some strips of CF cloth. I never handled this before and it sure is weird stuff. Basically it'll fall apart when you look at it
Mixed up a batch of epoxy and started laying it up



I first started with a layer of 200gr twill weave, to right away learn that this stuff does not want to conform to the tight angles I had created between the board and the trussrod (which is 6mm wide and 9mm deep)
Figured I'd continue anyways, hoping things would get better along the way
They didn't
I layed up 6 more layers of both 450gr twill and 400gr biaxial (+/- 45deg weave)
Ofcourse these wanted to conform even less to the shape of the trussrod... it looked like a friggin' mess
But since it was long past the point of no return, I soldiered on with a layer of peel-ply and some bleeder cloth and stuck it into a vacuumbag
(now, mind you, this was nothing fancy, just one of those bags to help you compress clothing or bed linnen, so they take up less closet space)
Luckily, on applying the vacuum, the CF started to tighten up against the trussrod nicely and the excess epoxy infused the bleeder cloth
Just like in all the youtube vids I'd seen
I kept an eye on the vacuum over the first few hours, but the cheap bag worked perfectly well (I was doubtfull)



Left the whole thing cure overnight and opened the bag this morning, excited to see how it all turned out
First pleasant surprise was that the bag did not stick to the epoxy (as I had hoped)
Parting the CF from the trussrod/mdf plug was very easy as well
Did have a hard time getting the bleedercloth and peel-ply off the part, but with some violent coaxing, that eventually came off too
Although the epoxy hadn't cured 100% just yet, the part felt extremely strong already
After some more curing, I roughly trimmed it tonight (it's still oversized at 10 x 70cm or 4 x 27.5 inch) and I'm really happy how everything turned out
It's about 2mm thick, lighter than it looks, and extremely hard. I can barely bend it over my knee let alone twist it
and the trussrod fits very tight (it actually snaps in place)
It's does have some cosmetic flaws (couple of little air pockets) but that is of no concern for this part...



Next I'll take a mold of the MM neck, which has me a little nervous as I don't wanna ef-up the neck
I'm figuring this stuff out as I go, so don't hold your breath for an update
Anyways... Hope this wasn't too long winded and I'll keep you posted

 

[swarfrat]

subbed!

 

[Bruce Johnson]

I really wanted a carbon fiber (or graphite) neck for some time
Then, when I finally decided to cough up the dough for a Status replacement neck, the guy from Status fell ill and quit making 'em
(really hope he recovers)
I looked for other options, but didn't find many, let alone one that fit my wishes
So... while looking further this christmas, I stumbled upon quite a few threads by @MPU
Needless to say, that put all sorts of wrong ideas into my head

I had already viewed a gazillion youtube vids on carbon (cause I'm a car guy and a tinkerer) as the stuff always fascinated me
Long story short, after a bunch of sleepless nights pondering over this thing I bit the bullet and ordered a bunch of materials last week

I've dabbed about with some polyester and fiberglass here and there before, but nothing major and definately not CF/epoxy
So here goes nothing

Plan is to copy the nech on my '93 EBMM
Over simplified, I'm roughly following @MPU 's builds, I'll mold the (back) of the neck, fill it with foam, glue on a board with a trussrod cavity and glue a fretboard to that
Figured I'd start with something small and relatively easy, just to get my toes wet and feel the water
So I started with the trussrod board

Took a piece of MDF, covered it with signing vinyl and positioned the trussrod onto it
Then covered the trussrod with packing tape (next time I'll use vinyl fot that too, as the packing tape left a nasty glue residue on the TR)
Although the epoxy is not supposed to stick to the vinyl or tape, just to be sure, I covered everything with some spray-on wax/release agent

View attachment 4952335 View attachment 4952336 View attachment 4952337

Next I cut some strips of CF cloth. I never handled this before and it sure is weird stuff. Basically it'll fall apart when you look at it
Mixed up a batch of epoxy and started laying it up

View attachment 4952338

I first started with a layer of 200gr twill weave, to right away learn that this stuff does not want to conform to the tight angles I had created between the board and the trussrod (which is 6mm wide and 9mm deep)
Figured I'd continue anyways, hoping things would get better along the way
They didn't
I layed up 6 more layers of both 450gr twill and 400gr biaxial (+/- 45deg weave)
Ofcourse these wanted to conform even less to the shape of the trussrod... it looked like a friggin' mess
But since it was long past the point of no return, I soldiered on with a layer of peel-ply and some bleeder cloth and stuck it into a vacuumbag
(now, mind you, this was nothing fancy, just one of those bags to help you compress clothing or bed linnen, so they take up less closet space)
Luckily, on applying the vacuum, the CF started to tighten up against the trussrod nicely and the excess epoxy infused the bleeder cloth
Just like in all the youtube vids I'd seen
I kept an eye on the vacuum over the first few hours, but the cheap bag worked perfectly well (I was doubtfull)

View attachment 4952339

Left the whole thing cure overnight and opened the bag this morning, excited to see how it all turned out
First pleasant surprise was that the bag did not stick to the epoxy (as I had hoped)
Parting the CF from the trussrod/mdf plug was very easy as well
Did have a hard time getting the bleedercloth and peel-ply off the part, but with some violent coaxing, that eventually came off too
Although the epoxy hadn't cured 100% just yet, the part felt extremely strong already
After some more curing, I roughly trimmed it tonight (it's still oversized at 10 x 70cm or 4 x 27.5 inch) and I'm really happy how everything turned out
It's about 2mm thick, lighter than it looks, and extremely hard. I can barely bend it over my knee let alone twist it
and the trussrod fits very tight (it actually snaps in place)
It's does have some cosmetic flaws (couple of little air pockets) but that is of no concern for this part...

View attachment 4952340 View attachment 4952343 View attachment 4952344 View attachment 4952345

Next I'll take a mold of the MM neck, which has me a little nervous as I don't wanna ef-up the neck
I'm figuring this stuff out as I go, so don't hold your breath for an update
Anyways... Hope this wasn't too long winded and I'll keep you posted

A cool project! We all encourage you to go for it. See if you can work out the process. Around here, Marko (MPU) has been leading the way with some very sophisticated carbon fiber bass projects. His threads are the best resource I know of.

One suggestion: There is a simpler method of construction that you might want to try for your first carbon fiber neck. Start with a plank of light weight wood, like basswood or even balsa. Carve that to the shape of your MM neck, but a little smaller. Then, lay up the carbon fiber and resin on the outside of it as the permanent structural shell. The basswood core stays in there permanently. Glue that flat part you just made on top of it, then glue on the fingerboard.

Building it around the basswood core won't be quite as light weight or technically cool as the hollow shell filled with foam. But it will still be very strong, stiff and light weight. And it's a simpler process. You don't have to make the mold from your MM neck.

 

[Jeroen914]

@Bruce Johnson , been backtracking Marco's threads and been through them a couple of times. Excellent resource and without them I probably would have never taken this on
(his wood builds are equally impressive)
I've thought about building something out of lightweight wood first and covering that in CF as well, but my OCD tells me I would never get a nice straight back (the curved part), so "just" taking a mould of an existing neck seems a lot simpler (in my mind at least)
I just need to figure out some details about the headstock and I'll be cracking on
Watch me fail

 

[MPU]

You can sand the laminate of an over the core- laminated neck to shape and make a final, cosmetic cf layer over that sanded shape. I made a neck for a Modulus style bass that way and it came out great.

 

[Jeroen914]

@MPU ... I'm sure I could if I tried it, but something in my mind freaks me out about shaping a neck by hand

 

[Jeff Siddall]

I really wanted a carbon fiber (or graphite) neck for some time
Then, when I finally decided to cough up the dough for a Status replacement neck, the guy from Status fell ill and quit making 'em
(really hope he recovers)
I looked for other options, but didn't find many, let alone one that fit my wishes
So... while looking further this christmas, I stumbled upon quite a few threads by @MPU
Needless to say, that put all sorts of wrong ideas into my head

I had already viewed a gazillion youtube vids on carbon (cause I'm a car guy and a tinkerer) as the stuff always fascinated me
Long story short, after a bunch of sleepless nights pondering over this thing I bit the bullet and ordered a bunch of materials last week

I've dabbed about with some polyester and fiberglass here and there before, but nothing major and definately not CF/epoxy
So here goes nothing

Plan is to copy the nech on my '93 EBMM
Over simplified, I'm roughly following @MPU 's builds, I'll mold the (back) of the neck, fill it with foam, glue on a board with a trussrod cavity and glue a fretboard to that
Figured I'd start with something small and relatively easy, just to get my toes wet and feel the water
So I started with the trussrod board

Took a piece of MDF, covered it with signing vinyl and positioned the trussrod onto it
Then covered the trussrod with packing tape (next time I'll use vinyl fot that too, as the packing tape left a nasty glue residue on the TR)
Although the epoxy is not supposed to stick to the vinyl or tape, just to be sure, I covered everything with some spray-on wax/release agent

View attachment 4952335 View attachment 4952336 View attachment 4952337

Next I cut some strips of CF cloth. I never handled this before and it sure is weird stuff. Basically it'll fall apart when you look at it
Mixed up a batch of epoxy and started laying it up

View attachment 4952338

I first started with a layer of 200gr twill weave, to right away learn that this stuff does not want to conform to the tight angles I had created between the board and the trussrod (which is 6mm wide and 9mm deep)
Figured I'd continue anyways, hoping things would get better along the way
They didn't
I layed up 6 more layers of both 450gr twill and 400gr biaxial (+/- 45deg weave)
Ofcourse these wanted to conform even less to the shape of the trussrod... it looked like a friggin' mess
But since it was long past the point of no return, I soldiered on with a layer of peel-ply and some bleeder cloth and stuck it into a vacuumbag
(now, mind you, this was nothing fancy, just one of those bags to help you compress clothing or bed linnen, so they take up less closet space)
Luckily, on applying the vacuum, the CF started to tighten up against the trussrod nicely and the excess epoxy infused the bleeder cloth
Just like in all the youtube vids I'd seen
I kept an eye on the vacuum over the first few hours, but the cheap bag worked perfectly well (I was doubtfull)

View attachment 4952339

Left the whole thing cure overnight and opened the bag this morning, excited to see how it all turned out
First pleasant surprise was that the bag did not stick to the epoxy (as I had hoped)
Parting the CF from the trussrod/mdf plug was very easy as well
Did have a hard time getting the bleedercloth and peel-ply off the part, but with some violent coaxing, that eventually came off too
Although the epoxy hadn't cured 100% just yet, the part felt extremely strong already
After some more curing, I roughly trimmed it tonight (it's still oversized at 10 x 70cm or 4 x 27.5 inch) and I'm really happy how everything turned out
It's about 2mm thick, lighter than it looks, and extremely hard. I can barely bend it over my knee let alone twist it
and the trussrod fits very tight (it actually snaps in place)
It's does have some cosmetic flaws (couple of little air pockets) but that is of no concern for this part...

View attachment 4952340 View attachment 4952343 View attachment 4952344 View attachment 4952345

Next I'll take a mold of the MM neck, which has me a little nervous as I don't wanna ef-up the neck
I'm figuring this stuff out as I go, so don't hold your breath for an update
Anyways... Hope this wasn't too long winded and I'll keep you posted

Looking good!

Yes, getting CF to conform the way you want is always fun!

 

[bobdabilder]

Subbed

 

[arbiterusa]

Watch me fail

I like your style.

 

[swarfrat]

I don't remember who said it. I heard it on some YouTube engineering/science/diy channel.

"Failure is the default result of experimentation".

I love it. Trying to convince my 10yo (who needs to learn a bit of frustration tolerance). Failure is just something that didn't work, doesn't mean it was a bad idea in the first place.

 

[Bassinthemudd]

Watching

 

[Jeff Siddall]

@MPU ... I'm sure I could if I tried it, but something in my mind freaks me out about shaping a neck by hand

I did my first neck profile with a flap sander, some rasps and files, and couple of long (12" and 16") sanding blocks. Worked great and not nearly as hard as I imagined. I documented my procedure here:

First neck build: Canarywood and Curly Maple fretless

There is even a little bit of CF thrown in for good measure!

I still love the feel of that neck so I can confirm it is possible to have success on your first attempt.

Later, for my CF build, I made a reduced size balsa core using the same technique. That also worked great, and is documented here:

"FiberD" carbon fiber 5 string build

Good luck!

 

[micguy]

I built a fiberglass reinforced short scale guitar neck once - using Bruce's idea of a slightly small wood neck , with reinforcement on the outside (and no truss rod). It worked very well while I had it (it got stolen), but it wasn't stressed as much as a bass neck. The real trick with all of this is, without some serious mechanical engineering software or experience, it's a crapshoot as to coming up with an optimized design. Mine had the fretboard side with 1/4" of layup, which was almost certainly overkill. The idea of using the composite as the fretboard is structurally better than gluing on a wood fretboard, but if you want to do that I'd go with stainless frets - once you glue (epoxy) frets into a composite structure, they're in there for the duration.

Good luck!

 

[CaribooBass]

Carbon fibre neck?

Why?
I used to do a lot of archery and I enjoyed it a great deal.
Carbon Fibre arrows crack way to quick and are not easy to see, often leading to very painful hand injuries.

The thought of using a C.F for a bass neck unnerves me greatly.

I have never heard of a C.F neck used by any manufacture before. Can someone tell me who does?

Thanks
Clayton

 

[Jeff Siddall]

Carbon fibre neck?

Why?

Light, strong, stable, looks cool (that one is a bit subjective!)

I used to do a lot of archery and I enjoyed it a great deal.
Carbon Fibre arrows crack way to quick and are not easy to see, often leading to very painful hand injuries.

The thought of using a C.F for a bass neck unnerves me greatly.

Well... if you have a cracked CF neck you have a serious problem. Not sure it would be hard to see!

The good news is that no one will make you use a CF neck, so you don't need to worry!

I have never heard of a C.F neck used by any manufacture before. Can someone tell me who does?

Thanks
Clayton

Status Graphite, Modulus, Steinberger, Moses, Peavey, Zon to name a few.

Edit to add Steinberger -- how could I forget them?!?

 

[swarfrat]

You left out Steinberger? Basses are not generally used as projectiles.

 

[legalbass]

Carbon fibre neck?

Why?
I used to do a lot of archery and I enjoyed it a great deal.
Carbon Fibre arrows crack way to quick and are not easy to see, often leading to very painful hand injuries.

The thought of using a C.F for a bass neck unnerves me greatly.

I have never heard of a C.F neck used by any manufacture before. Can someone tell me who does?

Thanks
Clayton

I've had two carbon fiber bass guitars necks by Status Graphite and they were both stable as steel.

 

[NKBassman]

Carbon fibre neck?

Why?
I used to do a lot of archery and I enjoyed it a great deal. Carbon Fibre arrows crack way to quick and are not easy to see, often leading to very painful hand injuries.

The thought of using a C.F for a bass neck unnerves me greatly.

Kind of an apples and oranges comparison, isn't it? Would using wood for bass necks scare you if you had a bad experience with wooden arrow shafts?

Carbon fiber and epoxy composite materials offer extremely high strength:weight ratio, very high tensile strength, and good resistance to bending (by way of tensile resistance in the fibres). By using CF stiffening bars inset into the neck under the fretboard, or an exterior CF wrap or shell around a lightweight core material can result in an extremely stiff neck that will be more stable and require less adjustment than an unreinforced neck.

 

[Bruce Johnson]

@MPU ... I'm sure I could if I tried it, but something in my mind freaks me out about shaping a neck by hand

Oh come on, summon up your courage! Carving a neck from wood is probably the most enjoyable and satisfying part of being a Luthier. You should learn to do it.

 

[Matt Liebenau]

Light, strong, stable, looks cool (that one is a bit subjective!)



Well... if you have a cracked CF neck you have a serious problem. Not sure it would be hard to see!

The good news is that no one will make you use a CF neck, so you don't need to worry!



Status Graphite, Modulus, Steinberger, Moses, Peavey, Zon to name a few.

Edit to add Steinberger -- how could I forget them?!?

I’ll add Rainsong and Composite Acoustics make or at least made acoustic guitars out of CF. I rather like my Rainsong. It’s been through all sorts of weather conditions and the only time I retune is when I change strings or go from standard to open D or G. Including summer and winter at a church that met in a tent for 2 years.