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Neck Attachment Methods for the Steel String Guitar: A Personal Journey! by: Peter Allan Sawchyn  |
Neck Attachment Methods for the Steel String Guitar: A Personal Journey! by Peter Allan Sawchyn Sawchyn Guitars When I began my first instrument, an Appalachian Dulcimer, thirty years ago, thoughts of neck attachment were far from my mind. Quite simply, I had chosen a "simpler" instrument to tackle for my first attempt. Following a fairly successful result, the Dulcimer had a good sound and sort of played in tune, I moved on to a slightly more complicated instrument, a mandolin. This is where the need to properly attach a neck arose.  Not one to complicate matters I chose to build a mandolin designed closely on the Martin "A" model. This allowed me to attach the sides of the body directly to the sides of the neck at the heel/headblock area, once again allowing me to circumvent the problem of a separate body/neck joint. After a few successful attempts at this style of mandolin I soon made plans to build my first steel string guitar.   I had enough experience and had inspected enough steel string guitars to realize the large majority of them were built with necks and bodies that were constructed separately and assembled either before or after finishing. As my instrument making skills were far behind my enthusiasm (which luckily I realized at the time), I decided to attempt a conventional dovetail joint, assembled before finishing. Not having been building for very long and still being quite young (and poor!), power tools such as a router, band saw, or drill press were out of the picture. I was on my own with a dovetail saw, a chisel and some files. I have vague memories of this process, (I have tried to block the experience out!) but I do remember a lot of sawing, chiseling and filing, to eventually get a workable joint fitted and glued in place. There was probably more shim material than dovetail, but it worked! I continued building this way for a few years, assembling before finishing, and gradually improved my technique, but I still found it quite labour intensive. I was exploring and considering making a more technically perfect joint using a router, dovetail bit and templates, when I read David Russell Youngs book The Steel String Guitar: Construction and Repair. Along with other valuable ideas on guitar construction was the radical, and to me, brilliant idea of glueing the heel directly to the body exterior, with high strength Epoxy. His method, described wonderfully clearly in his book, was to construct the body ass if no joint would be used, making a smooth, flat surface where the neck heel would attach. The fingerboard would be temporarily "pinned" in its exact location over the body. One would insure, by minute adjustments, that the established plane of the fingerboard resulted in the proper bridge height at that point on the body. This achieved the resulting angle of body and underside of the fingerboard was transferred to the neck heel, and the results were amazing! When done properly, a heel surface that fit the body without gaps and glued in place with a high strength epoxy, the joint was unbelievably strong. My experience with this method, over the next eighteen years or so, was most gratifying. I could easily assemble a neck / body without problems and be confident of the integrity of the joint. As a matter of fact I have never had a neck come loose with this system. I adapted this method for my classical guitars, building a "footed head block" inside the body with the same grain orientation that would be found in a traditional Spanish neck joint, and then attaching the neck/fingerboard with the epoxy method. I still use this method on my classics, as I think it's very similar to the Spanish method of attaching the sides directly into the neck/heel area early in the construction process.  As I said this is a very strong and satisfactory method of construction, with one small drawback, the neck / body joint is finished after assembly. I really didn't give this much thought until a few years ago when I realized I was building quite a few more guitars each year and a little more streamlined process was required. I had also wanted to finish my guitar necks in the popular "matte" finish but was unable to do so with the epoxy method. These two factors necessitated a change. I was now quite at home with guitar construction and had been gradually building jigs and fixtures for various operations in the shop. I constructed a pair of fixtures, one to hold and cut the mortise or female dovetail and the other to hold and cut the tenon or male extension on the neck heel. Using an 8-degree dovetail bit in a router, this matching matching dovetail mortise and tenon could be precisely duplicated on each guitar. The neck fixture was made adjustable to establish the correct "neck set" ensuring proper bridge height.  I was able to construct and finish the body and neck separately and use a matte lacquer for the finish on the neck. Even with a precise method of machining the dovetail joint, it was still necessary to trim, and fit the joint with hand tools. The results were great. After the body and neck were finished separately they could be glued together, with a very precise joint resulting. I had been very familiar with dovetail joints through over twenty-five years of guitar repair, and most frequently the problem was a loose neck joint. This always required removal and resetting, a process that involves carefully "lifting" the fingerboard extension over the body and loosening of the glued dovetail by injecting steam until the joint comes apart. The neck set is then reestablished and glued back in place. When properly done the results are undetectable, but the procedure can be somewhat time consuming. I had known about "bolt on" necks for some time and had not paid much attention, thinking they were an "unsophisticated" and unproven aspect of guitarmaking. After some research I realized that many makers were using various versions of "bolt on" construction, and with great success. I decided to give this a try and proceeded to implement this method of attachment.  The "bolt on" system that I chose to use requires a flush heel to body joint, just as I had used with the epoxy method. When constructing the body two countersunk holes are drilled through the headblock approximately one third and two thirds of the way down from the tops surface. Two special brass inserts having a course wood thread on the exterior and a ¼-20-machine thread interior are threaded into the flush side of the neck heel in corresponding locations to the two holes in the body. The heel to body joint is made similarly to the epoxy method but the interior, flush surface of the heel that attaches to the body can be relieved or dished away from the body leaving approximately three to four millimeters of surface that actually contacts the body. This is quite easy to true up to get a perfect joint and actually is all that is needed to be secure. This is the same amount of surface a traditional dovetail has in contact with the guitarbody; the shoulders of the dovetail are angled into the tenon while fitting.  After the body and neck are finished they are assembled similarly to dovetail construction, with the fingerboard extension glued to the bodies top surface and the two bolts securing the heel to the body in place of the traditional dovetail. I've chosen to only glue the outer perimeter of the fingerboard extension (about ½") to ensure an easy removal if necessary tightening the two capscrews gives a very secure joint at the heel / body area. I find a few light tightenings ensure any compression of the headblock is taken into consideration. This is really a lovely, quick and trouble free method; yes its "mechanical" but can be removed or readjusted relatively easily. I'm sure I'll use this for years to come. So, you ask. Whats all this got to do with me if I just play guitar? Well, not much really, other than what could happen to your guitar in the future. Simply put, all the methods that I've used, I think, are good sound choices. Each, like everything, has its good and bad aspects. A joint that is finished after assembly will show signs of repair (if necessary) usually due to the need to touch up finish in that area. Finish can also crack and commonly does on lower price guitars. This can be a sign of a neck joint problem or shrinkage, but its still unsightly. Dovetails when well executed last long and look great. I have though, repaired and reset many that haven't. The cost of repair was always a determining factor and usually resulted in less expensive guitars getting a quicker, easier and sometimes-uglier repair job. My hope is that the bolt on method will allow an easier and just as effective method of repair when the time comes. To date I see no problematic signs. Possibly if inexpensive guitars also had bolt on necks, repairs to them would also be cost effective. In my opinion there are really no Superior methods, each has its own merits and each maker will use a variation that suits their practices. I'm sure all guitarmakers wish to make their neck joints as permanent as possible, but when corrections are necessary an easy and straightforward method should be available. Peter Allan Sawchyn E-mail: sawchyn@net1fx.com Web site: www.sawchyn.com Download this article. Download Adobe Acrobat Reader Return to the top Copyright© 2000 Mel Bay Publications, Inc.
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