Here's an interesting bit of related trivia. We all know that steel string guitar tension is in the neighborhood of 150 lb in line with the neck, and I think that is true though I haven't measured it. What is interesting is that those who do measure things tell me that this translates into a mere 4 lb +/- of pressure perpendicular to the strings at the nut. Since the neck is just over 12" long, and the heel is just over 3" long, we can see that the lever the neck represents produces just 16 lb (4X) of pressure away from the body at the heel cap. These are not very big forces IMO, though they are constant. This is also an incentive to keep the set up on your guitar in good health, as it does not take a much higher action to double the 4 lb figure.
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