Cut Your Angled Headstock

[Mattia]

Like mattia, I get my headstock wood to a little over 1/2" before I glue the scarf joint on.  I use a bandsaw to do this, and block sand to smooth out the marks the bandsaw leaves.  Man there are millions of ways to build.. lol

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Yep, that's half the fun. Work with the tools you've got, although I heartily reccomend learning to use a handplane to anyone. There are times when it's simply the fastest, cleanest, and best way to get a job done, and it doesn't require a huge amount of monetary investment.

Of course, if I had a bandsaw, I'd use that for a lot of things. And a thickness sander. Mmmm....large stationary power tools.

[TeiscosRock]

So, do you remove more from the face or back of the headstock when getting it to the right thickness, or does it really matter?

[Mattia]

So, do you remove more from the face or back of the headstock when getting it to the right thickness, or does it really matter?

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Doesn't really matter, but the face, generally. Because its easier. Smaller area, easier not to plane off the nice sharpe edge that the scarf relies on.

[Hughes]

would someone be able to draw a picture on paint about getting the wood the right thickness before scarfing, because the only thing i can make up is seeing the part with the fretboard being 1/4" thicker then the rest

[Guitarfrenzy]

This is basically how I do it. A rough drawing of the first couple of steps I do.

If you don't have a bandsaw though, you can use whatever you have to cut the angle. After you get these steps done, you can either use handplane or the router smoothing jig I was talking about, to make the scarf joint surfaces nice and flat.

Hope this helps some.

Matt

[Hughes]

so after you cut the scarf you take a band saw or whatever to make it 1/2"...and that would also shorten the scarf a bit am i right?

thanks for the drawing

[Mattia]

so after you cut the scarf you take a band saw or whatever to make it 1/2"...and that would also shorten the scarf a bit am i right?

thanks for the drawing

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Yep, that's how I do it. Except with a handsaw and a plane. Otherwise, exactly the same.

And whether it shortens the scarf depends on how you make it. If you glue it on top of the neck, it will shorten the scarf (and, I might add, lengthen the headstock). Stick it on behind the neck shaft, and it really doesn't matter much. I tend to stick it on behind the shaft, so I can cover both joints with veneer, and I don't have a glue line in my neck shaft, although I've done it both ways with good success. Both methods work.

[Mickguard]

I had a thought this morning...(my confidence levels are rising and I'm starting to think about building the neck for my next project )

Anyway, since I have the wood here, why not cut out two cross-sections of the neck --including the angled headstock and heel-- from the same plank of wood.

The two pieces are then glued together to form the neck block. An advantage is you get a nice center line there. And no stinkin' scarf joint.

That's basically how laminated necks are built anyway, right? And I have to assume that a laminated neck will be super-stable too.

You could probably cut the pieces out from the plank in a way that will minimize wastage.

[Mattia]

Anyway, since I have the wood here, why not cut out two cross-sections of the neck --including the angled headstock and heel-- from the same plank of wood.

The two pieces are then glued together to form the neck block. An advantage is you get a nice center line there. And no stinkin' scarf joint.

That's basically how laminated necks are built anyway, right? And I have to assume that a laminated neck will be super-stable too.

You could probably cut the pieces out from the plank in a way that will minimize wastage.

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Yep, that's how laminated necks are made, as a rule. Start with perfectly flatsawn stock in this case, of course, which leaves you with a quartersawn blank. Generally people use odd numbers of laminates, or at least have a contrasting veneer. Non-veneer, triple lammed (center lam flipped for stability) necks are common, and the joins should be near-on invisible in a wood like mahogany, which lacks super-clear grain lines. If you do it in maple or similar, I'd reccomend contrasting veneer, purely because of the visuals.

This said, when I do laminated necks, I STILL scarf joint. Because a lamination will not in any way solve the short grain in the headstock, and just cutting out a straight bit with a bit of a heel area (also for acoustics) saves more wood than cutting out the single piece. Besides, since I don't have a bandsaw, it's still easier for me to do the scarf (although by now, that's because of practice; I actually enjoy scarfing headstocks, so go figure).

[GregP]

Scarfing is so easy. I'm a complete amateur numpty still, but it wasn't a problem to scarf-joint my neck blank....

Not nearly as problematic as trying to inlay my own fretboard.

Greg