The neck is made using two 45 degree cuts, one for the headstock and the other for the "thru-the-box" part of the neck. This allows the "thru-the-box" part of the neck to miss the resonator. If you zoom in, this photo also shows the rather low play action of the strings.
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Yeah, just take your time with your builds and try to think things thru before you do them. I used to make drawing of all my designs before building and that was another good way for me to think thru the design and avoid errors. I usually find when I rush a build I usually screw it up. But, a big part of becoming a good craftsman is the ability to camouflage your mistakes, or modifying them into a feature. On a banjo neck I was doing, the last fret split off the wood all the way to the end of the fretboard, so I cut it short, and I cut away a bit of the underlying neck to form a "strum hollow" like some of the modern banjo designs have. Now I think I'll make it a standard feature of my banjo style necks.
Thanks for the detailed description Rand, I appreciate it. I like your guitars, and I like how you detail the mistakes too! I get a lot out of them, but somehow they don't prevent me form making the same mistakes over and over. Cheers.
I use a zero fret to make the measurement of the other frets on the fretboard more accurate. I have found that if I don't have a fret 0, I'm never quite sure where the high point of my nut is going to be, and this uncertainty usually means I get it wrong and my frets are no longer spot on. So now the cut bolt used as a nut is relegated to setting the spacing between strings and perhaps helping guide the strings to their respective machine tuner.
The surface area question I assume refers to the butt joint between the headstock and the neck. That overlap is 50mm (about 2"). The same goes for the butt joint between the neck and the part of the neck that goes through the box. The wood I used for the headstock and neck is "red beech" (a hardwood with nice sound characteristics) and it's sold in pre-cut lengths of 2.2m x 2.5cm x 2.5cm (184" x 1" x 1"). Usually I laminate either side of the neck and headstock with another piece of sapelli or cherry trim wood (0.5cm thick), so my total neck with is more on the order of 3.4cm wide which is nice for wider string separation or perhaps a 4th string, but on this build I was aiming for an all around smaller instrument, so I went with the narrower neck.
So simple and neat and clean, and unusual too. I like it. And even though I've used bolts as nuts I never thought of using one with a zero fret. How much surface area is glued? It looks like about 40mm.
My first instrument with this style neck was a 1-string canjo using a cola can. The two pieces (head and neck) are just butt joined, but the amount of glue space was increase by sliding the two pieces over each-other until the top bend was aligned with the bottom bend as you can see in this photo. The "neck-thru the sound box" part of the neck was joined the same way. So far I have had no problem with this joint on instruments with 3 or fewer strings. Have yet to try it on instrument designs with more strings.
Comments
Hi Boxy,
Yeah, just take your time with your builds and try to think things thru before you do them. I used to make drawing of all my designs before building and that was another good way for me to think thru the design and avoid errors. I usually find when I rush a build I usually screw it up. But, a big part of becoming a good craftsman is the ability to camouflage your mistakes, or modifying them into a feature. On a banjo neck I was doing, the last fret split off the wood all the way to the end of the fretboard, so I cut it short, and I cut away a bit of the underlying neck to form a "strum hollow" like some of the modern banjo designs have. Now I think I'll make it a standard feature of my banjo style necks.
-Rand.
Thanks for the detailed description Rand, I appreciate it. I like your guitars, and I like how you detail the mistakes too! I get a lot out of them, but somehow they don't prevent me form making the same mistakes over and over. Cheers.
Hi Boxy,
Thanks for the complements.
I use a zero fret to make the measurement of the other frets on the fretboard more accurate. I have found that if I don't have a fret 0, I'm never quite sure where the high point of my nut is going to be, and this uncertainty usually means I get it wrong and my frets are no longer spot on. So now the cut bolt used as a nut is relegated to setting the spacing between strings and perhaps helping guide the strings to their respective machine tuner.
The surface area question I assume refers to the butt joint between the headstock and the neck. That overlap is 50mm (about 2"). The same goes for the butt joint between the neck and the part of the neck that goes through the box. The wood I used for the headstock and neck is "red beech" (a hardwood with nice sound characteristics) and it's sold in pre-cut lengths of 2.2m x 2.5cm x 2.5cm (184" x 1" x 1"). Usually I laminate either side of the neck and headstock with another piece of sapelli or cherry trim wood (0.5cm thick), so my total neck with is more on the order of 3.4cm wide which is nice for wider string separation or perhaps a 4th string, but on this build I was aiming for an all around smaller instrument, so I went with the narrower neck.
-Rand.
So simple and neat and clean, and unusual too. I like it. And even though I've used bolts as nuts I never thought of using one with a zero fret. How much surface area is glued? It looks like about 40mm.
Hi Richey,
My first instrument with this style neck was a 1-string canjo using a cola can. The two pieces (head and neck) are just butt joined, but the amount of glue space was increase by sliding the two pieces over each-other until the top bend was aligned with the bottom bend as you can see in this photo. The "neck-thru the sound box" part of the neck was joined the same way. So far I have had no problem with this joint on instruments with 3 or fewer strings. Have yet to try it on instrument designs with more strings.
-Rand.
What a cool design. The headstock is sort of similar to how I do mine