Official Luthiers Forum!

Air guitars are the lightest and they play and sound just GREAT!!!! Although some people will only use dovetail jointed air guitars for some wierd reason

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Joke aside, titanium frets would be fabulous, really. But maybe not a joy to install and dress

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Build log

That makes a lot of sense to me.

I think in this particular case, nobody wants to use a butt joint, as it is weaker, and then you get cracking.
And nobody wants to see a butt crack....

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

pocket screws!

From the neck into the top, then fill the hole with those little football shaped wedgie things...

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Mitch

Hummm??? Maybe we should all go back to using M&T with opposing tapered dowel pins those are fun to both install and get out!

I vote for laser cut diamond frets. ^^

too much bling I guess

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Build log

Alain pal .. you are WAY too funny. BTW, good looking threads man ...

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Alain...practicing proctology in your spare time, I see!

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

Judy Threet beat ya to it

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

That defeats the purpose of a dovetail. Tightening the bolt would loosen the dovetail joint.



I'm going to take a large chuck of mahogany and carve the neck, sides and back out of one piece. No joint!

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Mike

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh." The Stranger

Not true, this is actually a misconception, although that has been an opinion of many for some time. I know of several people who do it and that is not their opinion, and these are well known and highly respected luthiers, Judi Threet and Sergei de Jonge to name a couple. If you make the joint tight enough, it's simply not going to effect it, unless you torque the bolt/screw so much that you manage to compress the wood fibers. The dovetail tightens itself from both directions, not just one. The bolt simply keeps it from moving apart.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

I can see having the bolt just tight enough to keep it from moving apart, but then the bolt seems likely to come loose.

If you actually tighten the bolt, while it may pull the shoulders of the joint together, it will loosen the dovetail part.

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Mike

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh." The Stranger

All I can tell you is that if done right, it works without releasing the dovetail.
Don't have time to go into the "how" right now...

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Don, I'm stickin' to my guns on this one! As you pull the neck in, The shoulders will compress a little, and the cheeks of the dovetail lose contact.

I'm not saying the joint doesn't work, I'm just saying it essentially becomes a butt joint and negates the purpose of the dovetail.

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Mike

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh." The Stranger

Well, that's debatable! Ha! I'm just having a bit'o fun. Yes, old Martins are light. Yes, a lighter guitar should prove more responsive but by no means does it indicate fabulous tone. Who knows, it might just mean you have an implosion waiting to happen.

But I agree, the shirt is ultra slick and has quickly become my favorite! Now I'm dreading the day I'm going to drop some CA or some other nasty glue/chemical on it, and thus, have it relinquished to shop use only... sniff sniff...

JJ, waddaya mean, 'In my spare time'?...

Dave, you kill me man!

Alex, titatium frets would rule pretty hard. But as you mention, they'd be a major PITA to dress.

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

Nope. Your drawing is wrong.

When the dovetail is fully engaged and tight, both the dovetail is tight and the cheeks of the heel are tight against the side.
You have to do the dovetail as an interference fit, not a loose fit. It should *pop* when it is fully engaged. At this point there is no movement possible unless you force the dovetail tenon upward in the pocket. The simple tightness and friction of the joint is what will prevent what you are suggesting will happen.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Can anyone here figure out a single perceived benefit (emphasis on perceived ) this dovetail/bolt-on combination may have over either system used individually.

Tone, weight, serviceability, manufacturing - I just see no sense in it. If you're going with a bolt on, why bother with the dovetail at all? If you go through the trouble of perfectly fitting a dovetail, why introduce a bolt?

No, a well fit dovetail will not be pulled apart by a bolt, but a bolt in that direction won't hold the joint together any better either. If it were bolted through the back, or at least at an upward angle from inside, I might be able to see some sense to it. As it is, it makes no sense at all to me - none, zip, zero, zilch.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

I think the big advantage of a dovetail is that you can set the neck and string it up, then do your basic setup work (bridge location etc.) without fussing inside the sound box with the bolts and an allen wrench etc. as you do on a M&T joint. But then for final assembly you use the bolt instead of glue. Hence a solid dovetail joint without having to steam it to get it apart for the inevitable reset "someday". Yes, you would want the bolt angled so as to keep the downward pressure on the whole joint.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Well, my friends, I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree Just as long as I get the last word in

I maintain that the possible movement is from the shoulders compressing, even if ever so slightly, which will pull the cheeks away. At any rate, my drawing isn't "wrong" it's just a matter of how you look at it. In the non-bolted version, I am trying to show the cheeks, and everything else, being tight against one another, like you say they should be. In the second, I'm showing the shoulders compressing.

Regardless, here's an idea for something else in the same vein: a drawbored dovetail. Replace the (in my opinion) useless bolt, and add a wooden dowel that can be removed. Make the hole in the heel block just slightly below the corresponding hole in the heel itself. When the dowel is inserted, it draws the dovetail downward, which is what tightens the joint.

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Mike

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh." The Stranger

I can't decide whats best so maybe I'll go with a spanish heel on my next one. The heel can be quite small and I can hog out a lot of material on the inside to keep it light.

Philip

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aka konacat

If you think my playing is bad you should hear me sing!
Practice breeds confidence and confidence breeds competence. Unfortunately, I'm stuck in practice.

Um, I wasn't thinking of putting the bolt in the end of the dovetail, I was actually thinking of a way to put it in the BOTTOM, so that it pulled the dovetail DOWN into the neck slot TIGHTER. Access to the bolt head is the only issue....but I can envisage a way to do it from INSIDE the git box.....

BTW, I thought Grit Laskin did the screwed dovetail joint first......from what I've read.....but I'm no expert on acoustic guitar history (yet).

Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

It might have been Grit....but of course that just adds another great luthier to the list of folks using the joint which doesn't <ahem> work.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

I wouldn't argue that it doesn't work. My arguments are redundancy, uselessness, worst of both worlds - should I go on? In my opinion, either design alone is better than the two of them combined - like barbecued ribs and gelato.

I'm not saying that a better mousetrap can't be designed, but I don't think this is it.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Yeah, we had a long discussion about this a couple years back. Rick Turner and Grumpy both argued vehemently against it, not because it wouldn't work, but because they've tried just about everything out there and settled on using a butt joint. It's a very simple joint compared to either the M&T or the dovetail. I think what I like about the joint is that it takes some of the old school/traditional approach, and marries it to more modern technology, to some degree. There are customers out there that want a dovetail, but they can also be concerned about the high cost of a future neck reset. In the case of the bolted dovetail, you get the "best" of both worlds, not that either is completely ideal.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."