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Permalink Reply by Dan Sleep on January 30, 2012 at 2:42pm

If you make the lid touch the neck, you won't get as good resonance as you would if you cut a relief notch in the wood under the lid. It will still work, especially if you are using a piezo pickup. I do mine like in the picture. Thanks to whoever made that pic in the first place, it wasn't me.

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Permalink Reply by Wes "I'm Baaaaack" Yates on January 30, 2012 at 4:18pm

You're welcome Dan ;-)

-WY

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Permalink Reply by Rouxdy Blues on January 31, 2012 at 2:36am

Based on the picture in Dan's post 2, does anybody connect the top to the neck where the first 3/4" notch going into the box is shown?  And as well at the back?    

I'm a noob, but that sure seems like a good place to attach so as to have interior access... 

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Permalink Reply by Kimmer Olesak on January 30, 2012 at 2:50pm

Thanks, Dan.

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Permalink Reply by Wes "I'm Baaaaack" Yates on January 30, 2012 at 4:23pm

One thing I am doing different now (from my pic above) is that I cut the relief about 3/16th the length of the box lid and then add a 1/16 'shelf' which is a 1/16 x 3/4 strip glued on. Saves a lot of time trying to get those cuts just right. Plus if you don't have a band saw, trying to cut the two reliefs is very difficult.

-WY

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on January 30, 2012 at 7:43pm

To amplify on what wes and Dan are saying (pun intended):

 

Attaching the neck to the top (assuming this is the lid of the box) stiffens the top, which is your soundboard. Stiffening the top can sometimes be a good thing (cf. tone bars, struts, sound strips, whatever you wanna call 'em, designed to enhance specific frequencies), but typically, you want the top to vibrate as freely as possible on these relatively small soundboxes, especially for an acoustic-only build. The vibrating top is responding to the string vibration through the bridge / saddle combo; it also is pushing the air inside the box volume, similar to the way a loudspeaker functions, causing the air to vibrate and transmit sound. Or so many luthiers believe and argue endlessly about.

 

Attaching the neck to the bottom of the box  is one way of allowing the top to vibrate, without having to cut a neck relief, if your box is deep enough. You will also find people attaching the neck to the lid, because they have found on many boxes that the bottom actually has thinner wood. Thinner soundboards make for better vibrating and resonance characteristics, especially on acoustic builds.

 

Interestingly, Crow on his highly simplified, basic Uncle Crow builds, gets awesome acoustic resonance by attaching his necks directly to the top, but on the outside of the box! I believe, without having scientifically tested this, that coupling the strings directly to the neck directly to the outside of the box, in effect creates a gigantic bridge; this design is thus able to transmit a wider frequency vibration spectrum, and may also be maximizing the drive of the entire air volume in the box (because there's no neck taking up space inside, see?), somewhat similar to the way a standard acoustic does with neck attached only to a heel block at the edge of the resonating chamber (notice what I called the body of the guitar?). Ask yourself why commercial builders do it this way, instead of doing a neck-through design.

Obviously, this is not as important for an electric build, especially for ones fitted with magnetic pickups. Remember that Les Paul's original Log was a heavy pine plank, fitted with the split-down-the-middle body halves of an acoustic guitar, which plank was then fitted with a mag pickup. Essentially, a neck-through! And the reason for this was to increase the duration of sustained notes beyond what was achievable only acoustically. And the later Steinberger electric stick guitars are essentially Les Paul's Log, minus the side resonating chambers.

So if you are planning an acoustic or acoustic / electric build, relieving the neck to allow the top ( or bottom) to freely vibrate is a good idea. If you don't care so much, because you're gonna play amplified with a piezo or mag pup, then it don't matter so much.

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Permalink Reply by Kimmer Olesak on January 30, 2012 at 9:27pm

Okay, I'm dizzy from that one but I get it. I watched the good Les Paul documentary on PBS and the idea of the dense material (his mother made fun of him suggesting a piece of dense metal for his guitar theory telling him "You'll never get Gene Autrey to play a railroad tie sitting on the back of a horse"). I packed my first electric cbg based on his solid body. I want to do the stick thru but am looking for as much resonance as I can get....also depending on the box. I also know it's going to come down to experimenting but, honestly, after what I went through with the acoustic guitars I just finished, I just want to make a few simpler versions and get as much tone out without the electrics (though I may still put that in them). Your material is very helpful.

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on January 30, 2012 at 9:23pm

there is in fact an easier and less wasteful method which enables you to start with a smaller neck blank.

I know wes' little sketchup there is almost gospel around these parts, but consider this..

(forgive my dodgy illustrator sketch, i wasnt gonna put hours and hours into it, hopefully you get the picture.)

in practice the profiling in step 6 happens before you attach the box in step 5, this for illustrative purpose only..

the only other builder that I know of that worked this out for himself is jay of Tiny guitars..

PS I dont think Les made his log for sustain, fucker was playing 32nd notes !! it was about eliminating feedback at extreme volumes and articulation, same reasons fender and bigsby did it.  it was the ability to crank the amp after eliminating said feedback that brought  the sustain.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on January 30, 2012 at 11:25pm

Kid,

 

I like your neck relief method (fewer cuts), and the illustrations are perfectly clear. There's obviously several ways to skin a ca...neck. Am I correct in assuming it also gives you the ability to get some neck angle, as a way to lower the subsequent string action, by varying the angle of the original cut? You can also do that by varying the shim thickness, I'm guessin'?

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on January 30, 2012 at 11:48pm

The shim won't change the angle, it'll change the fretboard relief at the join. (you can fine tune the angle with the shims but it's a lot of rooting around) The angle is determined at the cut of the scarf join at step 2. And yes neck angle = low action + tall bridge = volume + downward pressure = tone.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on January 31, 2012 at 12:55am

OK, got ya. What I was thinking is that I could subtly affect both the fretboard relief and the angle, if needed or wanted, by different shim thicknesses at the tail versus where the neck enters the box (the join). I assume you've played with this some?

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on January 30, 2012 at 11:50pm

And not to get into a pissing match with the Kid about Les Paul's Log (boy, that sounds kinky!), here's a direct quote from the man himself about the whys of his midnight Epiphone build:

 

In the early 30s, the up-and-coming professional guitarist began burning his energies on this central vision: a guitar that would produce undistorted electronic sounds.

"What I wanted to do," Mr. Paul told me, "is not have two things vibrating. I wanted the string to vibrate and nothing else. I wanted the guitar to sustain longer than an acoustical box and have different sounds than an acoustical box."

 

Taken from the following article:

 

http://www.lespaulbiography.com/

 

Just sayin'...

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