The Ridgewing neck is designed to allow quick, sloppy instrument assembly after which, when the strings are tensioned, the neck is pulled into exquisitely tight, precise and easily adjustable alignment with the body. When the guitar is assembled, the neck makes contact with the guitar body at three adjustable hard points, the large set screw near the end of the neck and the two gold-colored parts under the 14^th fret called “noogies”. The large set screw adjusts the neck angle over a fairly large range, providing design freedom for the height of the bridge over the body. It also lays across the crack between the two body halves in the neck pocket, keeping them precisely vertically aligned. It is adjusted with an Allen wrench through a small hole in the fingerboard.

The noogies are 3D-printed steel dowels with their faces toward the body shaped to guide and accept the ball-ends of the neck pocket set screws and lock them into place when the strings are tensioned. The noogies include a sloping feature so that when the guitar is assembled, squeezing the neck into place yields a very satisfying “Click” with the partial tension of the strings now holding the guitar together, awaiting final tensioning with the headstock lever.

Below are renderings of the “click” mechanism as the neck is squeezed together with the body. You can see how the ball ends of the set screws ride up the noogies’ sloped surfaces before slipping into their capture pockets.

That “Click” is a signature Ridgewing sensation, and the force profile leading up to it during the hand squeeze is determined by the geometry of the faces of the noogies. It is hard to see in the picture, but here you can see the two noogies are held in place with a 3mm stainless steel cross-pin that runs sideways through both as well as the heel of the neck between them. This pin can be popped out from the side so the noogies can be easily removed and replaced, allowing you to try out new ones with different “Clicks”.

The neck’s tension rod is adjusted by an Allen wrench through the hole at the end of the neck.