First neck joint

[Pat.Hawkins]

Hi Folks,
Just cut my first dovetail neck joint (using the StewMac templates).

It has gone ok but.....................

The neck is only about 2mm proud of the sound board and I suspect that the tenon has bottomed out as there's a slight wobble in the joint - not a pinch.

So my problem is..... If I take off the tip of the tenon, then work on reducing the large neck angle.

(A straight edge measures 3mm gap at the neck joint but 10mm above the sound board at the bridge.

Fortunately the neck is straight and doesn't need truing.

How do I nip the end off the tenon and reduce the neck angle without the neck dropping below the sound board height?

There may be no problem at all (I'll find out tonight).

But just trying to pre-empt the worst case.
Cheers

[simso]

IMO, at this stage that your at, you need to address the issues individually, address the fit of the tenon first, then once it's corrected you can adjust your angle if required

[kiwigeo]

What Steve says....tenon fit first then worry about fine tuning neck angle.

To be absolutely sure the tenon is bottoming out chalk up the inside surfaces of the mortise. Where the tenon is in contact with the mortise theyre'll be chalk marks on the former.

[johnparchem]

For me a properly cut tenon is proud of the top at the start of the fit. If it fit in all the way then it would be loose as soon as I removed wood from the cheeks to adjust for center and the neck angle. Also I want to end up with a tight fitting joint. If I tried to route it true to final size I would have at least a 50% chance of having it too small.

I do agree that the tenon should not be stopped by anything other than the fit between the mortise and the cheeks of the heal. Fix that first. So I relieve the heel between the tenon and the cheeks and I make sure that tenon is not too long and that the tenon should not bottom out. There should be a gap between the top mortise and the bottom of the tenon.

When I set a dove tail. I carve the cheeks of the heel to correct yaw (neck centered) then adjusted the angle then I can shape the tenon to drop it in the mortise.

Once fit it should be tight enough to be able to string up without glue.

If the tenon drops in all the way after removing the tip of the tenon or fixing a bottomed out tenon. I would glue shims on the tenon as it really needs to be proud at the start of the fit.