Official Luthiers Forum!

Hey so I joined this forum to gain knowledge in the art of lutherie particularly Gypsy Jazz style guitars. I have found much valuable info on the Selmer style Gypsy instruments and interpretations of. One thing I stumbled upon during my search on olf and viewing different neck joint discussions I keep stumbling upon folks referring to using a butt joint to fasten the neck? I mean no offense but am I understanding this correctly? Could I possibly see some pics of this and how you are doing it? How does this hold up in your opinion?

the neck wasnt butt jointed according to the plans

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Here's how I do mine, two stainless steel inserts embedded in the heel of the neck, no dowel, which a lot of people do with inserts. You can also use hangar bolts, but I prefer 1/4-20 furniture bolts.

No mortise or tenon involved. Plenty strong enough, plenty out in the world without issue. I glue down the extension with a tiny bead of titebond around the very edge.

Yeah thank you sir sorry for the confusion but I didn’t mean to insinuate I was considering a butt joint for a Selmer but just that I had discovered much talk about them in various places on the forum. I had never seen a butt joint used on a neck.

Meddlingfool thanks for the pic! Hey it’s looks like you route out a small pocket out where the tenon might would go am I seeing this correctly? Do you have a shallow mortise on the block?

Yes, most neck joints don’t touch all the way across the part that touches the body.

Only the edges of the heel need to connect…

Did something happen to the picture? It's showing as a broken link for me.

Pic works for me

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Pic is gone here

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

I’m using Tapatalk

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Seen this fellow and he seems interesting but he shows his butt joint at the end. Looks like he cut its flush with neck angle built in the adds a couple of recessed cut to glue in hardwood strips to strengthen the are for inserts. https://youtu.be/eRAIkjaoRXo

Here is another view of a joint similar to the one meddlingfool posted above. The neck shaft and heel are fully carved but there is no heel cap, so you can see the end of the channel in the body contact surface of the heel. Also visible is the end of a reinforcing dowel glued into the heel.



I use this joint often in my instruments. It is modeled after one used by Godin/Seagull, but most I have seen are very similar. This joint is featured in my book Building the Steel String Acoustic Guitar, because it is ideal for lutherie novices. It is very easy to fit the neck to the body when this joint is used. With some simple special-purpose neck fitting sanding boards, adjusting yaw and pitch is practically mindless. Construction of these boards is described in the book and also in my American Lutherie article "Aligning the Bolt-on Butt Neck Joint" (American Lutherie #126, 2016, p. 52). I'll see if I can dig up a photo.

BTW neck joints of this type generally require access to the bolts through the soundhole. A small mouth Selmer-style guitar may present a problem.

I'm by far not the first, but I have done a number of archtops with bolt-on necks using a a long piece of hex bar and a socket and hex wrench on the end while reaching through the jack/endpin hole.

Assuming you are using hex bar the same size as the hex bolt? Where do you find something like that?

Was thinking to do a neck reset on a cheaper archtop, and just cutting it off and making it a bolt on might be the best way to go...

Pat

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Pat

It's 1/4" x 24" hex bar but I took the socket piece off of one of those screwdriver thingies with a socket on the end for hex bits as the hex bit for the furniture bolts I use are smaller than 1/4". The socket is hammered on to the end of the bar with a drop of epoxy. It's a nice, thin walled socket so easily fits through the jack hole. If it's a regular endpin sized hole, you would have to come up with another solution. Perhaps a thinner hardened rod and a modified socket that could be put on to the rod through an F hole. I just use a 1/4" ratchet on the end of it for screwing in the bolts. I bought the bar at a Metal Superstore near me.

Thanks Rmmotolla for that awesome pic and your information that’s good stuff. I don’t think I will try that on the Selmer I probably will go with the usual m/t but will definitely give it a shot on something in the future.

I use a variation of a Johann G. Stauffer (1778 -1853) butt joint design for my "travel" guitars. It uses a metal plate reinforcement in the neck heel and a T nut in the neck block. A small diameter socket head cap screw holds the neck to the body. I use a recess in the neck block, which along with a couple of alignment pins holds the neck in position.
This system allows the action to be adjusted with the twist of an Alan wrench, to suit a player's playing style or seasonal variations of humidity, as well as making the neck removable to store inside the body.

Wow Clay S and the neck store’s away in the body?

Since it is a travel guitar I wanted to make as compact a package as reasonable for transporting it. I still wanted it to be a full sized guitar with a normal sound and playability when assembled. Storing the neck inside the body seemed like a good way to accomplish this. To keep the neck from flopping around the peghead slips into a recess in the neck block, and the bolt that normally holds the neck on is reversed and screws into the tail block (previous photos). The screw that holds the tail port cover in place incorporates a strap button.
I've used this design to build various models - dreadnought, OM, OOO-12fret, OO-12 fret, and my favorite - size 1. I also built a travel harp (contra) guitar, but I'm not sure it would fly with the airlines for the overhead.
Most of the design elements have been used before (bolt on butt joint neck, tail port, pinless bridge) I just combined them for this design. I've made minor refinements over the years, but the basic concept has remained the same.
With the neck locked down inside the body the guitar can be put in a gig bag and the neck of the bag folded over and pinned to the body of the bag as carry on luggage.
Neck block: