Posted by Casey jones on September 20, 2009 at 1:15pm
im making a 3 string fretless CBG and I noticed in alot of pictures many people have carved/sanded bends or dips out of the heads...i wanted to know if its need or does it help out with sound or??...i plan on using a bolt for where the "nut" goes on a regular guitar, but do i need the bend/dip in the head to help make the strings tight n' snug?...........also for the second picture i circled the piece in red thats pushing the strings down tighter, i wanted to know if its just for show or does it also keep things tight an snug an its just an added item?
If you ask Bairfoot Cajun about his build - you will see the plate circled is for string retention and improves the transfer of vibrations from the bridge area to the body (converted into volume). Look at builds that have floating bridges ( a lot) and the strings are never more than a couple of inches from the end of the guitar, which is as Diane said for the right grab. Some of the guitars have the strings mounted from the bridge itself which is a cool way of doing it (bearing in mind the stress the tension of the strings will exert on the bridge will have to be compensated for somehow with reinforcing.
Tuner end: The fellow who guided me in building my first CBD (physicist/curator at Bakken Museum, Minneapolis) had me mark precisely where the "nut" would be. To get a downhill run to the tuning machines we used a bandsaw to cut a 4-5" door-stop-like wedge off the fretboard-side (top), above the nut. Then we flipped it & glued it to the bottom, tightly clamped.
Years later, I started using the bandsaw to shape the top of the tuner end, finishing with a half-round medium then fine rasp and file. The students had all sorts of ideas after being challenged to come up with ideas for shapes with the excess wood at the tuner end: lightning bolt, initials, duck head, stars... fun stuff!
Complete idiots require some kind of notarization, partial idiots abound unregulated, at least in my experience. But I seem to be in pretty good company. My first head stock had issues but luckily so did my neck length. I just cut the end off and started again.
No, Brendan and I are the partial idiots, but we'd be pleased to add you to our club. Brendan, that okay with you?
Oooh! Oooh! Can I join too? I haven't done a build yet where I didn't make some ridiculously st00pid mistake (usually telling myself about it at the time).
Partial idiots, unite! Some of my heads look that way, but I don't cut it away. Instead I started with a thinner piece for the neck.
Then I glue on a fingerboard and apply a bit of thickness to the back of the head -- and you get a dogleg neck. In my case the head piece was usually some leftover fingerboard material. Cutting away is my least favorite part as well, as Ben said. (This was back when I had no tablesaw, and was using off-the-shelf oak trim. See the wood filler there?) Plus then the applied fingerboard gives you some extra clearance over the box in the playing zone, a bonus. Brendan deVallance said:
I cut away the wood from the head a bit and added some to the back of it to get a bit better angle on the strings over the nut. And also to fit the depth of the tuners i had. Mine looks like a sandwich on this shot only because im a partial idiot. But the depth is mostly to be dictated by the tuners.
Replies
How about this for a quick solution? No need to thin the headstock, but you will need to pull the strings down with somethingYears later, I started using the bandsaw to shape the top of the tuner end, finishing with a half-round medium then fine rasp and file. The students had all sorts of ideas after being challenged to come up with ideas for shapes with the excess wood at the tuner end: lightning bolt, initials, duck head, stars... fun stuff!
Wes Yates
Morons-R-Us
1313 Meatballs Ln
Suite 0000.2
Clemson, SC 29601
[ No Clemson fans were harmed in this joke -- Tho that would be totally acceptable. ]
Diane said:
Oh well, count me in.
Oooh! Oooh! Can I join too? I haven't done a build yet where I didn't make some ridiculously st00pid mistake (usually telling myself about it at the time).
Wes Yates said:
Seriously tho, nice to see how us folks solve these problems. Great working with you guys!
-Wes
Diane said:
Then I glue on a fingerboard and apply a bit of thickness to the back of the head -- and you get a dogleg neck. In my case the head piece was usually some leftover fingerboard material. Cutting away is my least favorite part as well, as Ben said. (This was back when I had no tablesaw, and was using off-the-shelf oak trim. See the wood filler there?) Plus then the applied fingerboard gives you some extra clearance over the box in the playing zone, a bonus. Brendan deVallance said:-
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