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Permalink Reply by Casey jones on September 20, 2009 at 6:20am

?

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• string tight.JPG, 35 KB

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Permalink Reply by Diane in Chicago on September 20, 2009 at 6:51am

Keeps things tight and snug over the bridge and over the nut, just like you said! And there are, as you saw, lots of inventive ways of going about it. You'll hear the term "string break" or "break angle" used when talking about this issue.

Without enough break, your strings can slip, buzz, not hold tune, etc. So your instrument will tell you when you don't have enough.

You can use a string tree on the head, and that second picture shows what amounts to a string tree, too, holding the strings snug as they head towards the tail.

Folks also thin out the headstock so the tuners fit through - so it serves two purposes sometimes.

Happy building!

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Permalink Reply by Mark on September 20, 2009 at 9:26am

The string retainer at the bridge end looks pointless (as far as I can see from the picture). String trees or retainers are a common feature at the headstock end - generally in situations where the headstock is in line with the direction of the neck (ie. like Fender headstocks) but not when the headstock is angled back (ie. as per most Gibsons) - in the latter case the angling of the headstock is usually sufficient to ensure enough of a break angle.
With my instruments I've found that even with a straight headstock I tend not to need a string retainer. I make most of my necks from pieces of timber that are an inch deep. Once I cut that away to the tickness I need to accomodate the tuners then I get enough of an angle to avoid any buzzing or rattling.

As an aside, the one occasion when I found it necessary to fit a string retainer was what seems to be a one-off freak. On one particular string the section between the nut and tuner seemed to have an audible resonant frequency that was the same as one of the harmonics of the main section of string, with the result that there was sometimes an annoying ringing due to sympathetic resonance. By fitting a string retainer I split the problem section into two unequal parts, which had resonant frequencies that were either above the audible range or were no longer tuned into the harmonics of the playing length.

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Permalink Reply by Brendan deVallance on September 20, 2009 at 2:00pm

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.

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• P1020377.jpg, 63 KB

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Permalink Reply by Steve Becker on September 20, 2009 at 2:05pm

Here's another option that I used on my first build. I had seen someone else used it and decided try it. It works OK, and looks different.

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Permalink Reply by Wes "I'm Baaaaack" Yates on September 20, 2009 at 2:40pm

One way to allow the strings to fit snugly in the nut and still keep full depth of the head is to dig a channel much like that of a classical guitar or violin (pegbox)

Channeled headstock

While this is not at all easy to do, its a good way to get strings to lie down on the nut without using string trees/retainers or angled heads (which to me are easier than the channel).

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Permalink Reply by Ben on September 20, 2009 at 11:22pm

I've found that most of the oddities on the instruments you see here have been created to fix different problems. Carving the headstock used to be my least favorite part...now I don't do it anymore thanks to the layering technique.

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Permalink Reply by Diane in Chicago on September 21, 2009 at 1:03am

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.

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Permalink Reply by Wes "I'm Baaaaack" Yates on September 21, 2009 at 2:01am

Hey, hey hey now... I resemble that remark ;-)

Seriously tho, nice to see how us folks solve these problems. Great working with you guys!

-Wes

Diane said:

Partial idiots, unite!

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Permalink Reply by Diane in Chicago on September 21, 2009 at 4:00pm

No, Brendan and I are the partial idiots, but we'd be pleased to add you to our club. Brendan, that okay with you?

Wes Yates said:

Hey, hey hey now... I resemble that remark ;-)

Seriously tho, nice to see how us folks solve these problems. Great working with you guys!

-Wes

Diane said:

Partial idiots, unite!

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Permalink Reply by Tres Seaver on September 21, 2009 at 5:31pm

Diane said:

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).

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Permalink Reply by HOGS GRUNT on September 21, 2009 at 7:57pm

And I thought I was the only one!
Oh well, count me in.

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