Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi all...I was just wanting to get an opinion here of which neck joining method people prefer/use. I saw in an earlier thread that the bolt-on was best/easiest when it came to neck resets in the future. But was wondering peoples opinions.

I started with the Dovetail on my first 3 guitars, I switched to the M&T for all since. Im considering giving John Mayes method a try, so the neck is completly bolted on - no glue.

_________________
Support the OLF! Bookmark our STEWMAC link Today!
Lance@LuthiersForum.com

My first was a dovetail, then I went with a Mortise and tenion Bolt on, now I am doing a Straigt but joint bolt on, Wouldn't go back.

I too started with dovetail(5 this way), now M&T bolt-on no glue (20 this way)

I have a question for John Mayes and others as well. I was looking through the Cumpiano book for the 100th time and noticed that when making the cut for the heel and MT fit, he recommends cutting an angle of 5 degrees when cutting into the side of the tenion.

John Mayes - BTW - I am a big fan of your DVD's and bought them all so far. Wateched them a couple of times and good value for the money. Now for my question. It seems that you do not cut the tenion sides at an angle. Am I right?? Do you then do some adjusting with a chisel to create a slight angle so the contact is tight to the body??

Thanks all - really appreciate this form - has been a great contribution to my never ending quest to learn!!

One thing to consider is the size of your heel. I make my heels really small, so I like the extra meat that the tenon behind it provides. I would be uneasy to make a straight heel bolt on as small as mine. For insurance I glue a maple piece in the tenon with the grain going opposite direction.

_________________
Rian Gitar og Mandolin

I put a piece of Dowling in the Heals of mine. I use a fairly small heal with but joint and haven't had problems yet.

Richard

Could you clarify or even post a pic? If I understand your approach, you dowel the neck heel to the neck block instead of dovtail or MT approach. So the heel glues directly to the sides. With that approach you probably go for a very flat surface on the neck heel - is this correct?

Does anyone else use this approach? Seems like it would be a whole lot easier and quicker than doing MT or dovetail.

Ok, to add to this discussion, I am building a Martin kit right now. It has a MT bolt on neck. However, there is only one bolt. Do I need to use glue to re-enforce the joint or am I fine with just the one bolt?

_________________
Joe Breault
Merrimack, NH
Perpetual novice

One bolt works fine...on the first neck I used like that I glued the f/b extension only...but upon retrospect, I don't even think that was necessary!

_________________
http://www.presnallguitars.com

Rich. I wasn't very clear. I put a dowl in the Neck heel, drilled in from the bottom of the heel. This is just to give some cross grain for the bolt inserts to dig into.The neck itself is a but joint bolt on. Don't have any pictres of this but I'll probably have a neck I could take a picture of within a few days. The heel cap covers it at the bottom.

Rich, the 5 degree cut to expose the tenon is really intended to simplify setting the neck angle. I use that method on all of my guitars. You generally wind up taking wood off of the bottom of the cheeks at the heel cap end. Cumpiano shows using a chisel for this but I found a block of wood with sandpaper stuck to it gives me more control. This method also is good for adjusting slight mis-alignments of the fretboard centerline and the center of the soundboard by selectively removing material from one side of the "cheek". One thing I do differently from Cumpiano is to glue the heel cap on after I set the neck angle. This prevents sanding an angle into the heelcap creating a gap between the heelcap and the bindings on the back.