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  #31  
Old 05-04-2016, 11:59 PM
jessupe jessupe is offline
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Originally Posted by stringman5 View Post
It seems to me that failure of the neck joint isn't really the issue. My understanding is that, over time, the soundboard and sides can become deformed due to stress from string tension, making a neck re-set necessary to properly re-adjust the neck angle.

The Taylor bolt-on neck technology accomplishes this quickly and inexpensively. My understanding is that resetting a dovetail neck joint requires a very skillful luthier and is therefore rather expensive.

I once read that luthier Linda Manzer said that it is inevitable that an instrument will need a re-set at some point in it's lifetime. If a re-set is inevitable, isn't better to utilize a design which enables this to be done more quickly/inexpensively?
This is one of the reasons I do what I do,and I think why the designers of violins did what they did A standard guitar heel is floating and or not attached to the back. With this design the static forces that are applied to the neck heel where it is attached, are transferred to the block/sides then, in the case of standard guitars the block is attached to a thin sheet back.

The overall force path animation that would happen if a guitar could be made suddenly completely elastic is that from the saddle break to the nut, the guitar would want to fold in half like a sandwhich where the headstock would be kissing the belly. These are the static forces that slowly deform the corpus{back/top/sides} The floating heel transfers force dramatically into the neck block,twisting at the sides, inducing force on the sheet back that would fold it in half length wise....

whereas a heel that is attached to a button protrusion will relieve some of that force and or the button back being glued to the heel now shares some of the load. When we factor in a carved arch with a recurved perimeter, we basically have the tip of a bow that is counter resisting the force applied to it, thus counter acting the static forces, more so than a non arched back/top with a floating heel.

I think the Taylor idea is great for traveling musicians who are going form Florida to Arizona the next day, guitar techs can probably fix them quick if they get out of whack
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  #32  
Old 05-05-2016, 10:10 PM
Chas Freeborn Chas Freeborn is offline
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Dovetail on all my guitars. Considering re-engineering one of my more contemporary designs to a shallow body acoustic / electric on which I'll probably go with a bolt on of some sort, but that's not even on the horizon yet.

Dovetails are fun and easy to cut. One of the few tasks I truly enjoy.

Bolt on neck with glued on fingerboard tail simply never made sense to me...
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  #33  
Old 05-06-2016, 06:44 AM
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Tim McKnight Tim McKnight is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by stringman5 View Post
It seems to me that failure of the neck joint isn't really the issue. My understanding is that, over time, the soundboard and sides can become deformed due to stress from string tension, making a neck re-set necessary to properly re-adjust the neck angle.

I once read that luthier Linda Manzer said that it is inevitable that an instrument will need a re-set at some point in it's lifetime.
I would agree to [partially] disagree with the statement. Guitar bodies do have a rotational force applied to the neck block area from string tension. Its true that guitar sides will twist, tops will be compressed and backs are stretched in tension so its likely conventionally built guitars will need a neck reset at some point. 9 Times out of 10 its not the fault of neck joint failure but rather plasticized deformation of the wood in the aforementioned areas.

There are a few builders who have set out, on alternate paths, to address the rotational forces of the neck block and redirect those forces to stiffer areas of the body in an attempt to head off a neck re-set. We use carbon fiber diagonal truss braces, from the top of the neck block, to transfer those rotational forces to the stiffest area of the guitar. at the lower point of the waist. Since we have been using this design our necks have never needed reset. I believe Howard sometimes uses a truss design as do a couple other builders.

Its not to say one design is better than another. But we recognize plastic deformation of wood naturally occurs over time, especially in lightly built instruments. Some just choose to address the problem on the front end rather than later.
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  #34  
Old 05-06-2016, 07:51 AM
John Morciglio John Morciglio is offline
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Not sure what I have to bring to the table?

Turning into a "dovetail vs bolt-on" discussion.

When "exchanging gifts" one year. I put Benadetto's archtop build and another Hand crafted guitars on my list.

I was shocked when I saw the "neck extension" just butted to the main neck???!!! Figured it must be tradition?

This would be an easy place to "finger join"?
Also considered finger joining the top plates (on an Arch-top)
Would have used my black tinted adhesive to highlight rather than hide the joint.
Then I priced top plates Carbon is way less expensive (for materials).

This does not have much to to with a full acoustic build?

For my next challenge/request will be making an archtop (with Sitca Spruce or locally sourced) top.

REMOVE-ABLE bolt-on neck. One guitar with 2 necks (Baritone and reg scale)

Have decided on a horizontal dovetail (consider traditional VERTICAL)

If executed properly, the string pressure alone will hold the join and be playable.
Would use either T-nuts or Al. "slugs" under the fret-board to thread and attach 2 furniture bolts.

It would be interesting to see a schematic of the Parker neck join.
Not really sure whats going on inside the box?

JM
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  #35  
Old 05-07-2016, 06:19 PM
LouieAtienza LouieAtienza is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by John Morciglio View Post
Not sure what I have to bring to the table?

Turning into a "dovetail vs bolt-on" discussion.

When "exchanging gifts" one year. I put Benadetto's archtop build and another Hand crafted guitars on my list.

I was shocked when I saw the "neck extension" just butted to the main neck???!!! Figured it must be tradition?

This would be an easy place to "finger join"?
Also considered finger joining the top plates (on an Arch-top)
Would have used my black tinted adhesive to highlight rather than hide the joint.
Then I priced top plates Carbon is way less expensive (for materials).

This does not have much to to with a full acoustic build?

For my next challenge/request will be making an archtop (with Sitca Spruce or locally sourced) top.

REMOVE-ABLE bolt-on neck. One guitar with 2 necks (Baritone and reg scale)

Have decided on a horizontal dovetail (consider traditional VERTICAL)

If executed properly, the string pressure alone will hold the join and be playable.
Would use either T-nuts or Al. "slugs" under the fret-board to thread and attach 2 furniture bolts.

It would be interesting to see a schematic of the Parker neck join.
Not really sure whats going on inside the box?

JM
I met Ken Parker at Woodstock in '14. Actually discussed that joint with him. If memory serves correctly, there's nothing much to the joint. The key is making a very accurate mortise for the metal tenon. The bolt at the back has a retainer that keeps it in place so the neck can go up or down. The neck shaft is hollow wood with no truss rod, the CF sheets go from inside the metal tenon to the neck shaft, then the shaft is laid with CF in layers, increasing at the heel, decreasing by the nut.
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  #36  
Old 05-07-2016, 06:24 PM
lizzard lizzard is offline
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Never thought I would generated this much discussion. Thanks to all who have shared.

Chris
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  #37  
Old 05-07-2016, 06:27 PM
LouieAtienza LouieAtienza is offline
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If memory serves correctly, Martin Keith has a very cool and unique neck joint using aluminum extrusion similar to T-slot...
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  #38  
Old 05-07-2016, 07:12 PM
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Bruce Sexauer Bruce Sexauer is offline
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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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  #39  
Old 05-07-2016, 07:59 PM
Monsoon1 Monsoon1 is offline
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Because of the guitar i've owned, i've thought about this very theme for over 30 years, and so I have a couple of opinions to share.

First, the guitar is an old Fender Villager from the 60's with the bolt on maple neck. It literally bolts on to the front block at the body just like it would on a Strat, and then there is a metal tube that runs from that block to the rear block. These are 12-string guitars, and I have two of them.
Well as you might expect, any tiny amount of change in the geometry of neck to body, is very easily compensated for by using a thin shim under the neck. My daily player is setup as good as a quality electric 6-string.
So as far as the effectiveness of neck mounting on these, I give them 5 stars out of 5.

About the sound. These are small body mahogany/spruce guitars, both in size and thickness. And I get a proper amount of sound from mine that has all the quality of tone that I expect from the tone woods.

So it occurs to me that this same design would sound plenty loud in a dread sized guitar. And the difference between it and a traditional mahogany/sitka dread would be mostly in volume.
Now that being said, I realize that some people want every bit of volume that can be squeezed from a guitar, and this method wouldn't be the very loudest. But the sound would be quite good, none the less.

So my overall point is that this old guitar kind of proves that you can do all sorts of different things in building a guitar, and still wind up with a good enjoyable sound.

Oh, I almost forgot! I used these as 6-string guitars because of the wide fender neck.
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  #40  
Old 05-07-2016, 10:11 PM
247hoopsfan 247hoopsfan is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lizzard View Post
Who still uses a traditional "dove-tail" neck joint? I know Bob turned the world to bolt-ons but...

Anyone?

Chris
Larrivee still uses dovetails on all models. Jean is a big believer in the hand
fitted dovetail. He's been at it for 50 years, so I guess he has good reason.
Here is a great video where he talks about guitar building. Skip forward to
18:10 if you just want to hear him talk about dovetails.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3P6HcKVTrY
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  #41  
Old 05-10-2016, 11:58 PM
LouieAtienza LouieAtienza is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Monsoon1 View Post
Because of the guitar i've owned, i've thought about this very theme for over 30 years, and so I have a couple of opinions to share.

First, the guitar is an old Fender Villager from the 60's with the bolt on maple neck. It literally bolts on to the front block at the body just like it would on a Strat, and then there is a metal tube that runs from that block to the rear block. These are 12-string guitars, and I have two of them.
Well as you might expect, any tiny amount of change in the geometry of neck to body, is very easily compensated for by using a thin shim under the neck. My daily player is setup as good as a quality electric 6-string.
So as far as the effectiveness of neck mounting on these, I give them 5 stars out of 5.

About the sound. These are small body mahogany/spruce guitars, both in size and thickness. And I get a proper amount of sound from mine that has all the quality of tone that I expect from the tone woods.

So it occurs to me that this same design would sound plenty loud in a dread sized guitar. And the difference between it and a traditional mahogany/sitka dread would be mostly in volume.
Now that being said, I realize that some people want every bit of volume that can be squeezed from a guitar, and this method wouldn't be the very loudest. But the sound would be quite good, none the less.

So my overall point is that this old guitar kind of proves that you can do all sorts of different things in building a guitar, and still wind up with a good enjoyable sound.

Oh, I almost forgot! I used these as 6-string guitars because of the wide fender neck.
Danny Ferrington made acoustics with necks that used 4 screws - from the top of the fretboard down into the neck pocket! He also designed guitars that were made/sold by Kramer (probably made by ESP) with the Strat style bolt on necks, which actually looked really cool (though I'm former Kramer krazy...)
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  #42  
Old 05-12-2016, 05:50 AM
Monsoon1 Monsoon1 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LouieAtienza View Post
Danny Ferrington made acoustics with necks that used 4 screws - from the top of the fretboard down into the neck pocket! He also designed guitars that were made/sold by Kramer (probably made by ESP) with the Strat style bolt on necks, which actually looked really cool (though I'm former Kramer krazy...)
for me it's a bit of a positive learning experience, in that it shows me how little difference a bolt on neck makes in how the guitar sounds.
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  #43  
Old 05-12-2016, 06:04 PM
LouieAtienza LouieAtienza is offline
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Originally Posted by Monsoon1 View Post
for me it's a bit of a positive learning experience, in that it shows me how little difference a bolt on neck makes in how the guitar sounds.
One can look at the guitars of Rick Turner or Michael Doolin, where the neck heel has 3 point-contact areas.
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  #44  
Old 06-27-2016, 11:46 AM
tkuane tkuane is offline
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Originally Posted by Bruce Sexauer View Post
When I was following contemporary "state of the art" industrial woodworking (free magazine for many years) I learned that threaded fasteners WILL eventually back themselves out in a stressed vibrating application, which sure sounds like a guitar to me . . . Oh, we're talking about a Taylor . . .

I have been called upon a few times to tighten loose bolt-on necks, but it may not be the rule. While I am a dovetail guy and have no intention of changing, I do not mind what others choose to do. A bolt on may or may not be as good as an HHG dovetail, but I am as certain as I am of anything that it is not better where aesthetics and performance are concerned.
These sentences made me smile, thank you for sharing your experiences in an entertaining, light-manner. I enjoy reading your very knowledgeable posts.

I find it curious that people who think IKEA furniture inferior for their bolt on joints suddenly gush over their bolt on necks when they find out that's what their Taylor guitar has.

A well made dovetail joint will last many decades or more, wheres bolted on pieces of wood that are regularly handled (i.e. a guitar) will need occasional adjustments
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  #45  
Old 06-27-2016, 12:23 PM
tjp tjp is offline
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Adjusting my bolt-ons is pretty rough. I reach in with an allen key about every third time I change strings, just to see if things are snug. Usually take about 30 seconds... Have never found a loose one, but it'll happen and I will twist the allen key about half a turn to fix it.

I use bolt ons because they are practical and easy to adjust. Was also influenced by a visit to the Goodall shop and a discussion with the guys there.

That does not prevent me from seeing the beauty, simplicity and practicality of a dovetail...
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