Suitable Material For Neck Supports?

Nomad

Scored some ash offcuts today, and made the neck wobblers below for a mere £1.50.

What's a good material to provide some padding under the neck? I have some thin leather which has a smooth and fairly soft nap on the untanned side. Would that be okay with oiled and maybe nitro finishes? (All of my current guitars are poly, but oiled is highly likely in the future, and I wouldn't discount nitro.)

http://i1279.photobucket.com/albums/y521/Nomad_Zamani/Tools/Other/Neck%20Wobblers_zps8fqrgapm.jpg

Rowby1

So what you're saying is that house bricks are not okay?

John_A

Leather will be fine, just avoid plastics and rubber

octatonic

I use felt.

paulnb57

On the youtube channel "Daves World of Fun Stuff" he used a leather belt from a charity shop...

Nomad

What about cork? Hobbycraft (and probably others) do a roll of 2.4mm cork for making noticeboards, coasters, etc. Much more cork than I need for these, but it could be used for other stuff (wg, facing on a fretboard clamping caul).

Sarge

paulnb57;978576" said:

On the youtube channel "Daves World of Fun Stuff" he used a leather belt from a charity shop...

I love this guy, the miserable bitter old bastard.
I wouldn't employ any of his techniques though!

paulnb57

Sarge said:

paulnb57;978576" said:

On the youtube channel "Daves World of Fun Stuff" he used a leather belt from a charity shop...

I love this guy, the miserable bitter old bastard.
I wouldn't employ any of his techniques though!

Agreed, but I find it compelling viewing....he is certainly a character, he makes me laugh out loud sometimes, my other half recognises his voice now.....

Nomad

Got cork. Stewmac has it on his neck supports so it can't be bad.

The local Hobbycraft had it in stock at £12.50 for 2' x 4', which is a shitload more than I think I need at present. A couple of comments: There's a small tear at one end of the roll, about 20mm long (near the corner), and sellotape is used to hold the roll together under the plastic wrapping - this left a slightly tacky deposit when it was peeled off. Aside from those minor quibbles, flexibility seems very good and the pattern of bits (grain?) looks quite fine and very consistent.

They do two other sizes. The smallest is 1' x 2' for just under a fiver (but none in the local shop), and the middle size is 1.5' x 2' for a tenner, which is disproportionately expensive (50% more for just over twice the price). Given that, the big size at 4x the area for 2.5x the price was the deal to go for.

Nomad

Finished the neck wobblers...

http://i1279.photobucket.com/albums/y521/Nomad_Zamani/Tools/Other/Neck%20Wobblers%202_zpshzffeoxe.jpg

The cork was a bit of a fiddle to trim with a scalpel - the stuff has quite a lot of friction as the blade passes through it. I found that snipping along the edge using the tip of a pair of curved nail scissors was much better. Then sand outwards towards the wood to tidy up. A lick of oil finishes them off.

The ash was nice to work with. Softer than I expected for a hardwood. It cut easily on the bandsaw, and shaping the neck channel bits was fine with a round Surform to rough out, followed by a drum sander gizmo in a clamped power drill. An 80 grit sleeve made short work of getting the dross out.

There are a couple of flaws that I didn't notice while working the wood - an indentation left by the edge of the sanding drum, and there's a small scratch on the inside of the big one that might be visible in the photo. I read recently that working with white woods can be prone to this sort of thing because the flaws can be hard to spot - lesson learned to inspect carefully before deciding that the shaping is finished. Not a problem for these - they're tools and just have to do what they're supposed to do, but it's good to see how easily the mistake can happen.