Help, Headstock Too Thin!

[whalehazard]

I'm nearing completion of my first build, an original design. It's got a maple neck with a rosewood fretboard. I miscalculated when thicknessing the headstock, and it is about 1/16" too thin for the tuners I have. I'm not worried about the strength of it, just wondering the best way to fix it. Has anybody had this happen? My initial thought was try to find thicker washers for the tuners, or double them up, but I also might try gluing a 1/16" slice of maple onto the back of the headstock, and then drilling through the existing holes. Any suggestions? Thank you!

[supplebanana]

but I also might try gluing a 1/16" slice of maple onto the back of the headstock, and then drilling through the existing holes

sounds good to me - or a front plate instead...

[Akula]

Yeah, adding a veneer might be the best option. I imagine the tuners would be more stable with wood around them than some wobbly washers.

I always reckon if you make a mistake, its often easy to make a feature of it. For instance, why not take three .6mm veneers, and dye the middle one black? Laminate them together, glue them onto the face of the headstock, then put an ever so slight chamfer on the edges to give you a white-black-white binding sorta look?

[B. Aaron]

I agree - the headplate/veneer look is a classy touch. You usually only see it on archtops and classicals, but it looks good on electric guitars too.

[Woodenspoke]

Your options are several. First how thick is the HS and not just the how less thick is the HS compared to the tuners. We should start with, " is the HS thick enough". Then with some pictures it many be easier to give you options as different HS designs may need different fixes.

More information and pictures please

[Razbo]

I'm nearing completion of my first build, an original design. It's got a maple neck with a rosewood fretboard. I miscalculated when thicknessing the headstock, and it is about 1/16" too thin for the tuners I have. I'm not worried about the strength of it, just wondering the best way to fix it. Has anybody had this happen? My initial thought was try to find thicker washers for the tuners, or double them up, but I also might try gluing a 1/16" slice of maple onto the back of the headstock, and then drilling through the existing holes. Any suggestions? Thank you!

I did that from using my memory to retain measurements. Interestingly, my first thought was also to use washers, but I ended up laminating some 1/4 maple onto it. I put it on the front. Kind of automatically, since that's where I'd cut too much from, but now that you mention putting it on the back, I think that would have worked better. Could have blended the form right into the neck. Rats!

Anyway, the fix worked fine and is almost seamless.

[Mors Phagist]

Yeah, I messed up like that too on my neck, and had to do that.

It worked out fine, if not great.