Enough with the pretty pictures for now.

To encourage those who might be interested in trying their hand at making and selling Ridgewing-compatible components, I will be putting up a series here of technical essays showing what you need, and how to do it. Some things you will need have to be made in a machine shop, like the above neck-pocket drill guide, but once you have it, using it to make perfect precision-fitting adjustable neck mounts is easy, like kitchen table easy. 

Here I want to show a typical Ridgewing solution – simple, easy , and yielding a precise result. This picture shows the drill guide you use, after you have routed out the neck pocket, to precisely drill the holes that will mount the two front set screws. These screws are how you adjust intonation and neck yaw angle. Depending on the drill bushings you have inserted into it, you can install M6 fine thread set screws, or if you want class, you can jump out of metric for a moment and install ¼-80 micrometer thread set screws.

You need a hand drill, and one clamp. You clamp the jig in the neck pocket, drill two holes, change drill bits and flip the jig over, and drill two smaller holes.  Done. Pop in a couple of brass threaded inserts, thread in the two set screws, and you are done.  Maybe add a dab of superglue so they don’t fall out.

For fun in Solidworks, you can turn your part into a Cheshire Cat.

Going….Going…..

Gone!

To start working like an engineer, try a top view line drawing with hidden lines showing:

And a front view…

If you look close, you can see the two concentric hole diameters the jig creates. The shelves behind the mounting holes are there to give you adjustment access to the back of the set screw with a ball-end Allan wrench.

And here is what you need to take to the machine shop.  They will give you a good deal if you bring something good to eat, and talk about your new guitar passion until they can’t take it anymore.

Or if you want to CNC your neck pocket:

Using illustrations like these in these daily essays ahead, the plan is to introduce each part of the Ridgewing joinery system in great detail, and show you how to make your own brilliantly improved version of each  guitar component so it is perfectly interchangeable with all other Ridgewing components.  You can then unload your prototype by putting it up for sale on the Ridgewing webstore in your own little storefront. Put a low price on it to get it out there and checked out by some Ridgewing player, and if it gets five stars you might have slipped in through the back door of a new career.