Official Luthiers Forum!

Howdy All,

Haven't been on much because I've been extremely busy in the shop. Hope everyone is doing well! One of the guitars I'm currently building (a 14th fret OM size) is going to require a 6-in-line headstock. (thanks Brock for the nice 6-in-line tuners that will go on this )

My question is, should the angle of the headstock be shallower than that of a 3 + 3, or would the standard angle work just fine? Another concern I have since I've not done a 6-in-line on an acoustic is intonation. I'm also wondering if the saddle compensation would need to be greater as well? I appreciate in advance any input regarding this from the pros and other experienced builders, thanks.

Below is a picture of one of my uncles while he was a Marine in Viet Nam circa 1966. As you can see he has an acoustic bearing a similar headstock to the one I am seeking to make but the pic isn't good enough for me to make out the angle obviously.

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Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

Great photo Bill!
No experience with 6 in-line, but I think I would at least reduce the angle, since electrics don't have any angle. I think you're pretty much in shoot from the hip territory. Probably not going to find an experienced answer.

Good luck,
Joe

The pictures of the peg head of the Martin styled Stauffer guitars don't look much different to me than a 3 on a side paddle head .
Check out these pictures from Elderly's website: http://www.elderly.com/new_instruments/ ... 0ST175.htm

Thanks Joe, that's one of my favorite pics of him. As a young boy he was one of my favorite uncles and heroes. Unfortunately, he survived Viet Nam with two purple hearts and a silver star, only to come home and get killed in a car accident in May of '69' at the age of 23.

Jack, what a gold mine! I was searching Elderly's sight last night and wasn't able to find this one. These pics and the specs answer a wealth of questions for me. Thanks a million!!! Or these days I guess you could say thanks a trillion.

If anyone here has ever done a 6-in-line acoustic I'd love to see the pics.

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Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

Do 12 strings change angle....? Am not sure why the intonation would be any different. I think your fine with the normal angle.

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

I had contemplated that Chris, but after looking at the Martin on the Elderly Instruments site, it looks like they use a standard 15 degree angle' I may use that since I plan to put the truss rod adjustment on the headstock end. Not my normal method but neither is the 6-in-line.



You know, I thought of that after posting my original post. I have a 35 year old Yamaha 12 string (which I absolutely love because I have yet to find a high end that sounds any sweeter) and it has the 15 degree pitch. I was thrown for a loop when I saw Martin's headstock on the Elderly Inst. site because I thought I had an original design idea for mine. Now I'll have to change my design because it was too much like theirs.

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Bill Hodge


One does not simply, own enough guitars!

I used the 15 degree angle. I'm running light gauge strings on it and it has not exploded or turned into a pretzel yet. I'm sure it would handle mediums just fine. This is an acoustic. Danny Ferrington did a couple of these a while ago. You can see pics in his book.







I kept the string spacing rather Gibsonish. Half of the strings are pulling the nut one way and the other half are pulling the nut the other way. Just so that the string pull is not yanking the nut off of the neck one way or the other and you have to anchor it down with a couple of pins to keep it in place. But you can do that if you need to.





I glued on some wings to get the width. I'm sure that is totally illegal in some circles. I didn't do anything special with the valute.





This probably won't help you out to much with what you are doing but, it is what we did.

Glen