I haven't done a great amount of wood working in the past, at least not where I would need to glue two integral pieces together. So, I figre I would ask this here.
Would the overall strength of the neck/headstock be compromised if I were to glue a headstock on in a lap joint method.
Something like this:
Obviously, I'd be using a strong glue and a clamp while it sets. But would this take away from the overal strength of the neck as a whole?
Thank you.
Tags:
I think this would be plenty strong! Lot's of folks, myself included, use a scarf joint which is weaker, I think than a lap joint. I always glue "ears" on the sides of my scarf joint. This gives more width to the headstock and also re-enforces the joint. As in most things, tight is good,so make sure the lap joint fits real well.
I have to second Jim's opinion here. What your talking about is transferring all the string tension to compression force on the neck. Caveman engineering talk......compression good. I have done some scarf joints that looked outright delicate with no problems at all. You will be able to break beads on truck tires!
Cool idea too, by the way!
Good thoughts
Unless you can cut that joint with less than a cigarette paper gap between all 3 faces, then it will be weaker than a simple scarf joint. It's a lot easier to draw it than it is cut two pieces of wood to fit together tight like that. There is no virtue in making something more complicated than it needs to be. You'll also have two surfaces which are glued endgrain to endgrain, which is a very weak connection, so that part of the joint will contribute very little to the strength.
Decent glue such as Titebond or trad hide glue is plenty strong enough for a scarf jointed headstock.
If you have little woodworking skills, then that joint you've drawn will end up with gaps, which will be weak and ugly-looking, whereas with a scarf, all you have to do is get to pieces of wood flat and glue them together.. The glueline on a finished joint should be pretty much invisible -most glues don't work well when they are effectively filling the gap-between surfaces, unless you go to stuff like epoxy or polyurethane glues...which really isn't appropriate.
If you have little woodworking skills, don't bother with a glue jointed headstock, cut it from one piece. If you absolutely MUST glue two pieces, then use a scarf joint. My view is DO NOT try what you've drawn, because I think it may end up being a time consuming, frustrating job with a poor result at the end....don't make things harder than they need to be.
I guess I should elaborate on what I wanted to do.
I wanted to have a shamrock shaped headstock, and I can't do that with a one piece neck.
The actual headstock, where the side leaves would come out, would be probably a couple inches wider than the neck on either side, the way I have it imagined. And I was hoping to make that out of one piece of wood.
I have Photoshop on my home computer, so I can give a better drawing of what I am picturing when I get home in a couple of hours.
FWIW, wood work doesn't intimidate me. I just haven't done a whole lot of it. So I am up to trying scarf joints.
If you are talking about just adding wings to give your head stock more width, there's no need to do any fancy joinery. As long as the joining edges are flat & square you should be fine with simple, securely glued & clamped butt joints.
Well, the way I have it planned (maybe be HAD it planned, at this point...lol) was to have a tuning machine on each leaf. I'd then have two screws or nails to wrap the string around and to the nut.
I'd imagine butt joints cannot take that kind of tension.
Ahh.. you'd be surprised. I use scarf joints on my necks, so due to the break angle there's really not a lot of upward tension. I also build my head stocks with multiple laminated/butt-jointed wings, I have built more than 75 of these gizmos and have never had one fail or fly apart.
i use Titebond III wood glue, once it's glued it's glued, the only way you'll shift it is with a saw...!
i had a professional Luthier once fix a broken headstock on a Gibson SG - he injected wood glue and clamped it, he reckoned a fixed Gibson headstock was stronger! (-;
So it would handle the string tension of the design below, if the parts that extend past the neck width are glued on with a butt joint?
yes should do it easily esp. 3 strings (-:
OK, here is a drawing of what I was hoping to do:
Obviously, the bigger gray dots are the tuning machines. The smaller ones are the screws or nails I would wind the strings around to bring it to the nut.
This can be tilted on a scarf joint or straight. I'm OK with either.
What is the best way to go about this?
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