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  #16  
Old 05-01-2013, 10:53 PM
charles Tauber charles Tauber is offline
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Originally Posted by Jackknifegypsy View Post
..on a guitar are an egregious offense to the instrument. I appreciate the organic nature of the wood joint....Most fine woodwork uses dovetail joinery or other wood joints as Highest Quality craftsmanship points and rightly so.
While I agree that the type of bolt-on neck pictured below is not the pinnacle of fine woodworking, mechanical fasteners can be found even on many of the highest quality wooden articles.




For example, most traditionally made chairs have screwed-on corner buttresses, without which, the chair is more easily damaged.



Guitar design and construction continues to evolve. With that evolution are new designs, new construction methods, new materials. There is nothing wrong with staying with traditional methods and materials, but some of the newer methods and materials are clearly improvements to the instrument and its ease of maintenance. Without innovation and evolution, guitars would still be ladder braced, small-bodied instruments with gut strings tied to a bridge, gut frets and wooden friction pegs for tuning.
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  #17  
Old 05-01-2013, 11:39 PM
Blue Willy Blue Willy is offline
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Originally Posted by charles Tauber View Post
While I agree that the type of bolt-on neck pictured below is not the pinnacle of fine woodworking, mechanical fasteners can be found even on many of the highest quality wooden articles.




For example, most traditionally made chairs have screwed-on corner buttresses, without which, the chair is more easily damaged.



Guitar design and construction continues to evolve. With that evolution are new designs, new construction methods, new materials. There is nothing wrong with staying with traditional methods and materials, but some of the newer methods and materials are clearly improvements to the instrument and its ease of maintenance. Without innovation and evolution, guitars would still be ladder braced, small-bodied instruments with gut strings tied to a bridge, gut frets and wooden friction pegs for tuning.
When you say traditionally made chairs, you mean traditional mass produced chairs. Factory made furniture has really gone even further downhill in recent years from the example you show. My father made furniture, custom stuff and period reproductions...Mostly early American and French Provincial. His period pieces were "traditionally made". He believed in joinery, dowels and glue and abhorred metal fasteners, especially in the pieces he made for our home. He has been in the grave since 1967 but his pieces have held up for lo these many years, through many earthquakes and many moves. I am sitting in one of his chairs as I type this, it is as solid as when he made it.

That said, mass manufacturers make many concessions in order to bring a product to market at a price people are able to afford. If I buy a guitar from an individual luthier, I am buying that guitar specifically to get a hand made piece, not a production line piece and I would expect to pay a bit (or a lot) more.

There is a "luthier" in my neighborhood who "makes guitars" or rather assembles guitars from kit parts and sells these "hand made guitars" which are all Fender clones with various woods and pickups of the customer's choice for the price of a luthier made jazz archtop or rosewood bluegrass flattop. The amazing thing is that some people are actually willing to pay these prices and then brag about how much their custom guitar cost them.

For myself, if I was into that particular aesthetic, I would just acquire the kit parts, assemble and finish the thing myself and I'd be bragging about how little it cost me.

The above is not to say that a bolt together guitar can't sound great or be perfectly functional...it is simply a matter of taste which type of construction one prefers. There is an old saying, "Taste cannot be disputed."
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  #18  
Old 05-02-2013, 01:46 AM
jeff crisp jeff crisp is offline
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Originally Posted by Blue Willy View Post
it is simply a matter of taste which type of construction one prefers. There is an old saying, "Taste cannot be disputed."
I don't know about taste not being able to be disputed. Maybe it can't but isn't taste in this sense normally used to refer to something more tangible than an invisible joint that has no discernible affect on tone. A bolt on mortise and tenon joint has more timber to timber contact than a traditional dovetail joint that is used on a guitar neck. They are not like a dovetail used in furniture that are tight on all faces. So a dovetail in this instance is perhaps not as elegant as you may think. As for strength, any abuse that could dislodge a butt joined bolt on would probably not be a good thing for any guitar to suffer.

Jeff

Last edited by jeff crisp; 05-02-2013 at 03:28 AM.
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  #19  
Old 05-02-2013, 06:23 AM
ZekeM ZekeM is offline
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Originally Posted by jeff crisp View Post
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Originally Posted by Blue Willy View Post
it is simply a matter of taste which type of construction one prefers. There is an old saying, "Taste cannot be disputed."
I don't know about taste not being able to be disputed. Maybe it can't but isn't taste in this sense normally used to refer to something more tangible than an invisible joint that has no discernible affect on tone. A bolt on mortise and tenon joint has more timber to timber contact than a traditional dovetail joint that is used on a guitar neck. They are not like a dovetail used in furniture that are tight on all faces. So a dovetail in this instance is perhaps not as elegant as you may think. As for strength, any abuse that could dislodge a butt joined bolt on would probably not be a good thing for any guitar to suffer.

Jeff
Well said.

Yes it's a "dovetail" but it's not the same as the one used on furniture. Completely different joint serving a completely different purpose. Dovetails can be a nice touch for someone who just likes to say their guitar has it but it is outdated and IMO has no benefits over a bolted neck. There are however benefits of the bolted neck over the dovetail.
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  #20  
Old 05-02-2013, 07:54 AM
dekutree64 dekutree64 is offline
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Originally Posted by charles Tauber View Post
Without innovation and evolution, guitars would still be ladder braced, small-bodied instruments with gut strings tied to a bridge, gut frets and wooden friction pegs for tuning.
My best sounding and playing guitar to date is not far from that. Just with metal frets, nylgut strings, and A-frame style braces in addition to the ladders... although there are no braces at all in the bridge area, just a thin strip to help prevent cracks:

And a sound clip: http://deku.rydia.net/music/em_impro...coralsnake.mp3
It's based off an old Torres, although the original didn't have the A frame or the side braces (and the sides were a mess of splits because of it) http://www.vintageguitar.com/3434/an...e-torres-1863/

But back to the topic of neck joints... no, I don't think it affects the sound. I mostly just enjoy the construction style of integral necks, as well as the light weight, ability to do low-profile heels on cutaway guitars for improved playability (butt joint bolt-on is the only one that has trouble here, because you have to leave a lot of meat on the heel for the inserts and to prevent it breaking off), and ability to do interesting curvy carving to blend the body into the heel on cutaway guitars, rather than having the corner of the body sticking out beside it like most.

And I like wood peg tuners on nylon string guitars because it's a lot easier to get the strings wrapped onto them than the rollers on normal machines, plus the gear ratios are always way too high and take forever to wind and unwind when changing strings. Planetary geared pegs are even better though, with 4:1 gear ratio. Just enough to make finetuning easier, but still quick to wind and no slots to fumble around in. Wood pegs are also extremely light weight. Planetary pegs a little heavier, and geared machines you might as well put a block of lead up there. Closed back steel-string tuners, make that uranium
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  #21  
Old 05-02-2013, 09:20 AM
charles Tauber charles Tauber is offline
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Originally Posted by Blue Willy View Post
When you say traditionally made chairs, you mean traditional mass produced chairs.
Yes. However, see below.

Quote:
That said, mass manufacturers make many concessions in order to bring a product to market at a price people are able to afford. If I buy a guitar from an individual luthier, I am buying that guitar specifically to get a hand made piece, not a production line piece and I would expect to pay a bit (or a lot) more.
The line between mass production (or mass customization) and "individual luthier" has become less well defined. Mass production guitars often sell for the same price or more than many individual luthier-made guitars. (Some at the "fringes", such as a Benedetto or Somogyi are generally much more and they are not bound by the same constraints.)

Many individual luthiers use construction and manufacturing methods similar to those in mass production - CNC machines, mechanical hardware, polymerized finishes, plastic bindings... Some "old world" features are used in mass produced instruments, such as hot hide glue, wood bindings and dovetail joints.

One of the hallmarks of the individual luthier was the expression/art afforded by inlay work. Now, for both mass producers and individuals, much of that can be done using CNC machines. The advent of such tools, in theory, frees the individual to be creative, rather than spend the time in manual labour. For example, it used to take me a day and half to hand-carve a lute rose: modern CNC machinery can cut that in under an hour. I now have that day "back" to focus on other details or design new roses.

It is important to keep in mind that any craftsmen who uses his craft to make a living must strike a balance between the price an object will bear and what it costs the craftsperson to bring it to market. While there are a few guitar makers who can charge anything they want, and the market will pay it, most need to sell their instruments in a not-too-different price range than the higher-end mass produced guitars.

One of the Fine Woodworking editors was once quoted as saying the finest woodworking being done in the world is generally by amateurs (i.e. those not making their living doing it) because amateurs can do things and use methods that are not "cost effective" - they don't care what the hourly rate of their labour is. Once the constraint of having to make a decent hourly wage is removed, anything goes. For those trying to make a living from their efforts, methods and materials need to "produce".

Last edited by charles Tauber; 05-02-2013 at 09:30 AM.
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  #22  
Old 05-02-2013, 09:25 AM
charles Tauber charles Tauber is offline
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Originally Posted by dekutree64 View Post
My best sounding and playing guitar to date is not far from that. Just with metal frets, nylgut strings, and A-frame style braces in addition to the ladders...
Sounds great.

However, if you had not told me what it was, I would have guessed it was one of the lute family - a different animal from a modern classical guitar.

Anyway, there are numerous options for attaching guitar necks to guitar bodies. Each has its advantages and disadvantages for a specific situation. After appropriately weighing those, seems appropriate to use the one you like best for the situation.
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  #23  
Old 05-02-2013, 11:42 AM
redir redir is offline
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You can't really compare the dove tail joints of fine wood working like tables and boxes etc... with a guitar neck joint. While both are structural you cannot see the guitar neck joint but fine wood working joints are designed to be seen as a part of the sculpture while guitar necks are designed to be removed, so often times a nice gap is left to make steaming out easier. I suppose it would be cool to actually see the guitar neck dovetail on the back, I'm sure it's been done but if there is a better method for a joint which for all practical purposes is purely structural with no visual effect then I'll use it. I suppose one could consider the bolts on the inside of the neck to be ugly but there are ways of dealing with that as well. Personally I think they look cool so long as they are not regular old bolt fasteners.
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  #24  
Old 05-02-2013, 12:20 PM
Jackknifegypsy Jackknifegypsy is offline
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Default As Charles mentioned the other day..

..about putting a single screw into a dovetail joint to stop the neck from rising up, I did the same thing this a.m. on another guitar.

Just drilled out a hole in the heel and into the neck block, placed a slightly larger 3 1/2" galvanized deck screw in, and tightened it up severely.

Doesn't move at all. But I didn't use a dovetail, just lined up and marked the heel, and butted the neck to the back of the guitar at the neck block, screwed it in. Since the screw is long and the wood it is anchored to is stable, I can take this guitar apart and put it together in the time it takes for a battery operated stick screwdriver to drive it or extract it. About ten seconds.

Plays fine, and with a very tight twist on the screw, the neck doesn't have any inclination to move in any direction. Don't need dowels, or tongue and grooves, or anything else to hold it.

But I can't stand it.
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  #25  
Old 05-02-2013, 12:52 PM
murrmac123 murrmac123 is offline
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Not wanting to enter into the discussion to any great degree, but just to point out that the hypothesis which is frequently put forward by advocates of the dovetail that there is greater "wood to wood contact " with a dovetail joint needs to be shot down in flames ...like instantly.

The maximum wood to wood contact is obtained via a straight bolted butt joint, no tenon, no dovetail.
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  #26  
Old 05-02-2013, 01:10 PM
ZekeM ZekeM is offline
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Originally Posted by murrmac123 View Post
Not wanting to enter into the discussion to any great degree, but just to point out that the hypothesis which is frequently put forward by advocates of the dovetail that there is greater "wood to wood contact " with a dovetail joint needs to be shot down in flames ...like instantly.

The maximum wood to wood contact is obtained via a straight bolted butt joint, no tenon, no dovetail.
Ummmm it's been a while since high school geometry, but I'm pretty sure a tenon has more surface area than a butt joint.

It really comes down to how you construct the joint. I've seen many instances where with a tenon material is removed so that just the edges "bite" into the body, but I've seen many that were not that way. I've seen a lot of butt joints where the middle was slightly hollowed and only the edges touched as well. So definitively saying one joint has more wood to wood contact is not wise. Now which one has a potential for the most contact is just a simple equation away.

Last edited by ZekeM; 05-02-2013 at 01:15 PM.
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  #27  
Old 05-02-2013, 02:09 PM
Alan Carruth Alan Carruth is offline
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And why does wood to wood contact area matter anyway? There's no sound being transmitted that way anyway. Several very good makers have used neck joints that have gaps built in, with no diminution of the tone. Once you've got enough contact to keep the neck from shifting noticeably with respect to the box, that's enough.

Dovetail joints on guitar necks are often very poorly fitted. The area at the bottom of the joint is doing most of the work in keeping the neck from folding up, and often there's not even any contact there. They're relying on the taper of the side to hold it, and that's not good practice no matter how well it's fitted.
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  #28  
Old 05-02-2013, 03:10 PM
ZekeM ZekeM is offline
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Originally Posted by Alan Carruth View Post
And why does wood to wood contact area matter anyway? There's no sound being transmitted that way anyway. Several very good makers have used neck joints that have gaps built in, with no diminution of the tone. Once you've got enough contact to keep the neck from shifting noticeably with respect to the box, that's enough.

Dovetail joints on guitar necks are often very poorly fitted. The area at the bottom of the joint is doing most of the work in keeping the neck from folding up, and often there's not even any contact there. They're relying on the taper of the side to hold it, and that's not good practice no matter how well it's fitted.
This is also what I've come to believe.
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  #29  
Old 05-02-2013, 06:52 PM
jeff crisp jeff crisp is offline
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Originally Posted by Alan Carruth View Post
And why does wood to wood contact area matter anyway? There's no sound being transmitted that way anyway. Several very good makers have used neck joints that have gaps built in, with no diminution of the tone. Once you've got enough contact to keep the neck from shifting noticeably with respect to the box, that's enough.
I agree 100%. The person that taught me has only ever done dovetails. In his own words is not because he thinks they're better, it's just because that's what he has always done. He has also told me that for the most part if the finger board extension is glued down then a single screw would probable do the job.

The reason I mention timber to timber contact was because a lot of dovetail advocates (many of them not builders) seem to think that the dovetail has more contact from one surface to the other and then I went on to explain how they are wrong.

However at this point nobody has mentioned (what I think is a relatively new development in building) plugging the open back of the dovetail which I have seen some people now doing. I have not been able to work out the point of it. I have heard some say its to avoid a neck reset but unless the dovetails poorly done in the first place I can't see how.

Jeff.

Last edited by jeff crisp; 05-03-2013 at 04:00 AM.
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  #30  
Old 05-09-2013, 11:59 PM
Blue Willy Blue Willy is offline
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Smile Bolt neck Martin...

Quote:
Originally Posted by jeff crisp View Post
I don't know about taste not being able to be disputed. Maybe it can't but isn't taste in this sense normally used to refer to something more tangible than an invisible joint that has no discernible affect on tone. A bolt on mortise and tenon joint has more timber to timber contact than a traditional dovetail joint that is used on a guitar neck. They are not like a dovetail used in furniture that are tight on all faces. So a dovetail in this instance is perhaps not as elegant as you may think. As for strength, any abuse that could dislodge a butt joined bolt on would probably not be a good thing for any guitar to suffer.

Jeff
It might interest you to know that my current favorite acoustic is a re-topped, re-necked (ebony board & bridge) '88 Martin which has a bolted mortise & tenon joint. The thing is an absolute cannon and sounds very similar to my friend's well loved '39 D-18 but louder.

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