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Permalink Reply by the anonymous pick on August 12, 2011 at 4:41pm

maybe the part of the wood that your machine heads goes through is too thin try putting a spacer in the back . or add a piece of wood . a tilted head would help too .. or a retaining bar/ pegs to pull the strings down after the nut .

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Permalink Reply by the anonymous pick on August 12, 2011 at 5:09pm

actually  by  your photo  ..  your first  machine head is too close  to   add retainers ,, so   your best  and easiest  bet  is to
 remove the machine heads  and add a thin piece  of  wood  or metal  behind the  headstock . or small washers  between the  machine  head screws .  then  put em back on ..

to suck those poles   in a bit more .  this  may require longer   machine head screws  though .

or  swap out the mackine heads  for shorter  ones .  you could try wraping the strings downward  in a few  wraps too . that may work 
the anonymous pick said:

maybe the part of the wood that your machine heads goes through is too thin try putting a spacer in the back . or add a piece of wood . a tilted head would help too .. or a retaining bar/ pegs to pull the strings down after the nut .

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Permalink Reply by Mungo Park on August 12, 2011 at 5:29pm

Yah, like he said the head stock is not low enough to pull the strings down, Cheers Ron

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Permalink Reply by Justin Mantelli on August 12, 2011 at 6:34pm

Im confused arent most machine heads standard size. Im using a 2x1 for the neck as most do Im not sure what the wood depth has to do with the pegs and that doesnt change the length of the pegs..... am I missing something here?

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Permalink Reply by Brian Hunt on August 12, 2011 at 6:36pm

You can glue a nice piece of wood to the back  of the headstock to lower your machine tuners height. If this doesn't create enough of a break angle to get a decent tone, you may need to add a 1/4 inch fretboard to your neck and raise your bridge to match it. When I use this type of a headstock, I always add a 1/4 inch fretboard to help get enough height for the string tension or break angle over the nut so I can avoid this problem. I also like to use a 5 to 6 inch head stock so I have enough room for string trees or a retaining bar if I need one.

 

Another idea might be to glue a thicker piece of wood to the back of your headstock and then lower the face of your headstock down to give yourself an extra 1/4 to 1/3 of an inch drop down from the nut. I generally make a headstock 5/8" thick or a hair over 15 mm if you prefer metric. If you lower the face of the headstock and make it thick enough to lower the height of your machine tuners, you should be able to achieve the break angle you need to get a clear tone with a lower string height.

 

I hope all of this helps you figure out a way to fix your problem.

 

Brian Hunt.

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Permalink Reply by the anonymous pick on August 12, 2011 at 6:46pm

Justin , most machine heads are standard size .. some arent though .
anyway , to be more clear .. you need to put something inbetween the back of your head stock (the bare wood ), and your machine heads . this will distance the machine head mounts further back .. thus makeing the poles stick out less on the otherside .
see what i mean ?

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Permalink Reply by Justin Mantelli on August 12, 2011 at 6:47pm

Thanks Ill check it out tomorrow and see what I can do!

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Permalink Reply by Outhouse Instruments on August 12, 2011 at 11:16pm

What you've run into is the reason we use an angled headstock.

One thing you can do is to wrap the strings in a manner that will help.

Start the string at the holeand go down toward the neck. It's better to use a continuous layered method than just letting it scrambled around the post.

 

Also use as low a bridge as possible.

 

AFKAM

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on August 12, 2011 at 11:21pm

Justin,

 

I agree, you need more string break at the nut, and various posters have addressed that issue by suggesting adding a piece of wood to the back of the headstock. You could also try small eyelet screws as string trees; it looks like you might have enough room for those, even so close to your first machine head. Also, doing a proper string wrap downward on each machine head will help some.

 

One other aspect to this has not been noted by previous posters, and just a thought: how high are your strings at the bridge, and at the 12th fret?  Lowering your bridge some might help. It might even be a combination of the first fix (adding wood to the back of the headstock), small eyelet screw string trees, and lowering the bridge a tad.

 

Anything but a complet neck rebuild!

 

Let us know how you get on,

Oily

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on August 12, 2011 at 11:55pm

Justin,

 

Oops, my drawing didn't make it to my amended post. Here's what I was thinking (similar to what Brian suggested):

 

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Permalink Reply by Dan Sleep on August 12, 2011 at 11:57pm

All good suggestions so far. If you are looking to be able to press down on the strings and play notes, then you will have to lower the height of the nut by deepening the slot it lies in. You want the strings to sit roughly the thickness of a nickel above the fretboard. This is just a starting point. If you lower the height of the nut, you will make the problem with the tuners worse.

 

As already mentioned the height of the spot where the strings are anchored at the tuning peg needs to be well below the height of the spot where the strings rest on the nut. You can either laminate a piece of wood the the back side of the headstock as has been suggested, or you can add some type of hardware that will hold the strings down tight against the nut to keep them from buzzing. There is nothing wrong with the actual tuning peg, it is the way they are mounted in relationship to the nut that is causing problems.

 

Does that help?

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Permalink Reply by swampapple slim on August 13, 2011 at 4:45am

by golly i think your sugestions will work nice all of them. good drawing, explains well. rite on Slim


oilyfool said:

Justin,

 

Oops, my drawing didn't make it to my amended post. Here's what I was thinking (similar to what Brian suggested):

 

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