Official Luthiers Forum!

I have seen Schramms's video of his version of the Smallman neck. It seems to me that the entire alignment of the neck is based upon the "hinge" that is, no constraints on the sides of the neck. Makes sense, but I just want to be sure. There are some photos on Schramm's web site that seem to show a slot to align the neck, and other photos do not show this.

Are there any detailed plans available for such necks?

Stauffer made guitars with detachable/adjustable necks early in the 19th century. I use a version of this on my 'test mules', since it allows me to use one neck with a number of different bodies and speeds up experimentation. The simplest version of it is to cut off the neck and fingerboard at the body and put a couple of locator pins in the end of the fingerboard, with corresponding holes in the stub on the body. Then you drill a hole in through the heel and the neck block for a bolt to go through. If you're building the guitar it's easy to put a T-nut into the body so you don't have to fish a nut in through the hole. You can get as complicated with this as you want. The locator pins can be replaced with screws that fit into holes, and used to adjust the exact location and angle of the neck. for example. You can also cut a mortise into the end block so the whole heel of the neck plugs in; when carefully fitted this looks like lass of a 'jury rig'. In any case, the neck is held on by the string tension, and the bolt simply keeps the neck from folding up. A gap between the neck and the block doesn't seem to hurt the sound so long as the neck is located securely.

I just made a Stauffer. The neck works great. I have photos of the neck and block on the post: build started, now done. The post is on page 2 of the forum. The photos are on page 2 of the post. I made the neck so it just fit snug in the tapered slot. I'm not planning on moving it much. I did have to lower it some.

It locates on the step in the block. A dowel at the top is there because it was on the plan. It locates, but doesn't hold it. Only the bolt holds it. I just used a brass insert as the nut. I just started a cello, and I think I'll use it on that. Why play around with bridges?

I would use something harder than Spanish Cedar next time.

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Why be normal?

The Howe Orme guitars had a similar neck joint that basically sits on three points--Rick Turner has used it in his guitars too. I think Alan is right--the gap doesn't make as much difference as having a very secure neck joint.

Being a banjo guy, there was a maker back in the 1890s, Hobart Middlebrooke, who had patents on a neck joint that was fully adjustable but still had a very secure neck to body joint much like the Howe Orme design.

Dave