Significance of a Dovetail Neck Joint

[Wolfram]

Personally, I believe that the tightness of the fit matters more than the method - a well-fitted bolt-on will much perform better than an ill-fitting dovetail.

Comparing these methods when well-executed, I could see that there may be differences (e.g. in a bolt-on there is positive tension from both the strings at the top and the bolts pulling the neck and body together vs a dovetail which has tension only from the strings) which may have a very minor effect on tone. Everything counts, but I don't believe I would be able to hear it.

I have a few guitars - mostly bolt-on and some that I actually don't know, and it really doesn't matter to me as long as the guitar sounds good. I have one guitar that has a 'floating' neck joint with neck angle adjustable via an allen bolt. I had been concerned before getting it that this arrangement would negatively affect sustain... I needn't have worried - this guitar has by far the longest sustain of any guitar I own and at least the equal of anything else I've played.

Originally Posted by Glennwillow

I know in basses that a bolt-on neck sounds very different from a through neck. But both sounds are great.

This is a little different though - it's the difference between the strings being anchored to the same piece of wood at both ends, vs being anchored to (usually) two different types of wood at each end, as well as the effect of any neck/body joint.


Cheers,
David

[BrunoBlack]

I like the concept of a hybrid bolt-on connection like Collings and Bourgeois uses. I like their sound and their guitars can be very, very light. However, I wouldn't hesitate to buy a high quality guitar with a well executed dovetail.

[ewalling]

Originally Posted by devellis

Resets aren't frequent enough to be a major consideration for most owners of new guitars.

The problem is that a neck with a dovetail joint does not suddenly need a reset. The neck angle can be less than ideal for years before the owner finally takes a series of deep breaths, agrees to have his prize instrument temporarily decapitated and forks out what might be half or more of what the guitar is worth for the privilege. The advantage of the Taylor-style bolt-on is that minor adjustments can made along the way so that the guitar always plays at its best. Moreover, there'll be no huge costs or long waits.

[Tico]

When executed with the same proficiency, it seems reasonable that more vibration is transferred between the body and the neck when the contact between the two has more surface area ... AND ... the contact area is comprised of more axes.
Because of the angle dovetail has more surface area than straight tenon, which (because it has 3 surfaces for the same footprint instead of just one flat one) has more surface area and axes of contact than bolt on.
A bolt on has only one axis of contact and the smallest surface area of the three.

Obviously if any of the three are not executed well, all bets are off.
Obviously bracing, wood quality and a trillion other things affects sound too.
But this thread is not about those, is it?
It's about which neck to body joint is best.

And really, why even bring up Y in a discussion about X?
Variations in Y (though of course valid and significant to the guitar) does not affect which X is better.
Yet people endlessly bring up Ys in X-discussions as if they were valid arguments related to X. So annoying.

Even though it seems to me reasonable that greater surface area results in better vibration transfer between two parts ... whether a human could hear the difference remains to be proven.
Proving this may be impossible because all those Ys introduce reasonable doubt you are hearing a difference attributable to X and not many many Ys.

That said, I'm happy to pay for what is (in principle) a superior design, dovetail, even if I can't hear the difference, and even if neck resets are much more expensive.
Perhaps that makes me willfully stupid.

[charles Tauber]

Originally Posted by devellis

Resets aren't frequent enough to be a major consideration for most owners of new guitars. I think people can pretty much feel free to buy the guitars they like without giving much consideration to whether the neck is attached using a dovetail joint or a bolt-on arrangement.

Agreed.

However, there seems to be an excessive number of relatively new guitars - a year or so old - that are requiring neck resets, having been assembled with poor neck angles that "are within factory tolerance".

My advice is that before buying, particularly a glued-on neck joint, check that the neck angle is acceptable. if it isn't don't buy it, else you'll be unnecessarily caught in the trials and tribulations of warranty repair work on a relatively new instrument.

[devellis]

ewalling and Charles Tauber raise excellent points about neck angle adjustments being needed earlier in a guitar's lifetime than my comment suggested. Thanks, guys, for those clarifications.

[rokdog49]

Thanks for all the responses including the pepperoni guy.

I know that Larrivee uses dovetail neck construction and I figured it was because Jean knows something about building guitars.
If I've learned anything from this forum, I've learned that nuances do matter to some extent. The extent to which they matter can be argued all day.
When Martin started using Richlite or whatever on some fretboards of some guitars, I was and remain skeptical. Especially when they switch from real wood to that material and then back such as with the MMV.
I suppose at the end of the day, whether it's dovetail, mortise and tenon, bolt-on or pepperoni, if it's well-built and plays and sounds good, then I'm ok with it.

[handers]

Originally Posted by rokdog49

Would someone care to explain this to me? Is it a huge factor and if so, why?

Tra-di-tiooooooon. Tradition. Tradition


(obscure musical/broadway reference)

hans

[drplayer]

Originally Posted by terrapin

You have opened a messy can of worms here.

That is a gross understatement!

Originally Posted by terrapin

When Dana Bourgeois is willing to say he sees "no reason to not use bolt-on necks" I think that speaks VOLUMES!

Yes it does, however, Richard Hoover emphatically claims that a dovetail neck joint is sonically superior to a bolt on neck. So, that speaks VOLUMES as well.


I've owned both and have no real allegiance to either. However, in my experience, I find it more than coincidental that to my ear, the guitars I've owned with dovetail neck joints have had a more traditional tone (Martinesque, Gibsonesque), while those that had bolt-on necks had a more modern voice. Certainly, there is much more to tone than the construction of the neck joint, but again, I don't think my observations are mere coincidence. As always...just my 2 cents.

[Basalt Beach]

Originally Posted by rokdog49

Would someone care to explain this to me? Is it a huge factor and if so, why?

Originally Posted by 00-28

Some say they can hear a difference, some say there is no difference. The argument from the Martin camp that there is a noticeable difference, comes by comparing guitars with dovetail neck joints to those with mortise and tenon neck joints. The flaw in this comparison is that the top bracing is very different on dovetail guitars and M&T guitars. A dovetail joint is a mortise and tenon joint and in Martin's case the two joints differ only in the shape of the mortise and tenon.

Other builders use Bolt-on necks. This is a very successful and functional method of neck attachment. Since these guitars are different from Martin, it's hard to compare and isolate the neck joint as having much influence. If the neck stays on and doesn't move, it a good neck joint. Listen to the guitar and if it sounds good, don't worry about the type of neck joint it has.

.............Mike

^^^^^ this answer ^^^^^

Originally Posted by Glennwillow

Santa Cruz uses dovetail neck joints, Collings uses bolt-on necks; Martin uses dovetail joints on their best guitars, Taylor uses bolt-on necks for all their guitars.

Because I own examples of all these guitars, I can only conclude that the differences don't matter to me. I like them all.

I do think that there are differences in the sound from different neck joints. Many of our luthier sponsors here on the forum have commented that everything matters. Whether you can hear the differences or not is another thing, but I suspect there are audible differences because of neck joints. I know in basses that a bolt-on neck sounds very different from a through neck. But both sounds are great.

I think you just have to play a bunch of guitars and find out what you like. If you like the guitar, that guitar might be for you. I don't think it makes a lot of sense to get too much into details about how the neck joint is made.

It is true that dovetail joints generally cost more to reset compared to bolt-on necks. But I can't make myself worry about resetting necks. I have been playing now for 52 years and have never had to have a neck reset. My Martin D-35 is 49 years old; my Guild F212 is 44 years old. Neither have ever had a neck reset, though the Guild 12-string is getting close.

I respect the judgement of the guitar builders who have made a mark in this world. But in the end, I am the one spending the money on particular guitars that I have acquired. For me, the sound and playability have always been foremost in my considerations. Other details, not so much.

If I were building guitars, as a longtime design engineer, I suspect that I'd be building guitars with bolt-on necks. And I'd do that so that when the occasional premature neck reset is needed, I'd have a cost-effective answer for my customers.

- Glenn

^^^^^^^^ and this answer ^^^^^^^^^

[handers]

Originally Posted by ewalling

The problem is that a neck with a dovetail joint does not suddenly need a reset. The neck angle can be less than ideal for years before the owner finally takes a series of deep breaths, agrees to have his prize instrument temporarily decapitated and forks out what might be half or more of what the guitar is worth for the privilege. The advantage of the Taylor-style bolt-on is that minor adjustments can made along the way so that the guitar always plays at its best. Moreover, there'll be no huge costs or long waits.

Good points.

I think the frequency of neck resets among 30+ year old guitars is unknown. Certainly, it is unknown to me. But I hear of neck sets being fairly routine in older Martins and similarly built guitars. I have a Froggy built in 1992, bought by me used in 2001 that needed a reset and they performed it for me. I can't speak to the care of this guitar before i got it and how that may have played a role in the need for reset. The guitar has been in outstanding order in the 15 years since the neck reset. It did not suffer in any way from the reset and is an outstanding 0000 guitar with rarified tone.

The Taylor neck approach is ideal from the point of view of neck care. I just don't want to play a Taylor. I have no idea if the Taylor mechanism impacts the guitar's tone but I think that some luthiers feel strongly about the neck-body joint and it's impact on tone. hasn't Alan Carruth experimented on this variable yet and come up with good data? Al??

hans

[Toby Walker]

The only thing that two luthiers can agree on is that the third one is completely wrong.

[handers]

Originally Posted by Ed-in-Ohio

Here's a quick visual guide for this discussion:

Left to right: Dovetail, Mortise and tendon (aka straight tendon), & bolt-on:

So the Collings is a dovetail, just held in place by bolts, not glue. I always understood that the important factor of the dovetail is the fit of the neck into the body. A perfect fit allows tone from the neck into the body?? (Maybe that's poppycock) But if you change the angle of a bolt-on dovetail to adjust neck angle, doesn't that change the fit of the dovetail into the body joint? How do you change the angle of the fit without changing the tone? Or is the dovetail fit just not that important? It seems likely to be easier to manufacture bolt-on necks in high number compared to glued dovetails; that may certainly be one reason that Taylor and Collings chose that approach over boutique builders? I have answers to none of these questions but would love to read what experienced luthiers say, even if there is no final answer.

One conceiveable answer is it doesn't matter, both work well. I can live with that.

hans

[BrunoBlack]

Here is Dana Bourgeois neck connection. From his website he says, "He strongly believes that his bolt-on neck design will allow for easy adjustability and great precision and for consistent tone and playability as the years pass. While many makers bolt the neck but glue the fretboard extension to the top, Bourgeois guitars use bolts for both neck and fretboard extension, allowing complete removal of the neck with nothing but a set of hex keys. One of the easiest necks on the planet to reset is a benefit to first and secondhand owners of Bourgeois guitars."

[00-28]

The Collings is a Mortise and tenon. The sides have to be angled along with being tapered to be a dovetail.



.....Mike