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Is there any reason not to use a glue dowel joint for neck to body instead of mortise and tenon? I build a lot of stairwells and so use a lot of blind dowel joints. I'm thinking this would be a good joint for guitars.

Use 1 inch or 3/4" oak dowels.
One high and one low.
Install barrel nuts in the dowels first.
You could send a 1/4" dowel up thru the heal for a super locking dowel joint.
Joint could be easily made on drillpress.
It is good enough for doors. Would it not work well here?

Mike

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How do you get it apart?

Chain saw should work for a reset down the road.

KB

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Dowels are only glued into the neck. Then the large dowels go into holes drilled in the body and block. The dowels have barrel nuts in centers of them and bolt up just as a typical mortise and tenon with barrel bolts. The only thing different is instead of a sawed tenon you are using dowels of a much harder wood. The glueing of the dowels in the neck would be with the grain and would be bullet proof. Glue dowel joints never seem to fail if the grain of the dowel and grain of the wood are running in the same direction. If they ever fail it is the against the grain end that fails. Since there would be no against the grain in this case it would never fail.
This approach could work well if for some reason you made your neck too short as you don't need the extra length for the tenon.

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It's not good enough for any doors I make. It is substandard for doors. Mortise and tenon is way stronger and is the appropriate joinery for doors. As for the guitar I am sure a dowel system would work fine but it is not hard to execute a M&T and requires no special tooling and is a tried and true method with tons of instruction on many ways to do it so why the dowels ? I don't mean to be short but I guess I am saying yes it will work but there is no real advantage, at least what I can see. I would rather use a floating tenon than a dowel.
Link

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Only sub standard for doors due to the cross grain glueing which you would not have in this instance. I'm not suggesting this would be a better method just brain storming. The potential advantages could be as stated if your neck happened to be a little too short. The oak would be stronger on the barrel bolt. If you indexed your drilling off the top of guitar and top of neck and used your drill press or horizontal boring machine you should line up right on. Easier flossing with dowels out.

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Just to 'add fuel to the fire'.......

If you are using a bolt-on neck, neither mortise and tenon or dowels are required.
Simpler is better!

There is really not a lot required to keep a neck on (and stable enough to do its job on,) a guitar.

Cheers
John

I think your over thinking the strength needed to hold a neck to a body. Hell a but joint bolted on can do the job well.

by using dowels you decrease the surface area of each peice to be joined, which affects the sustain (i think). also, if you get a snug joint, you really don't need the extra support. i dont believe you even need a tenon. just a tight neck pocket and some pva would do it. personally i prefer the bolt on over any other option. once you glue that sucker in you better be sure you wanted it in there! coz it aint comin out without a fight.

I have a Turner guitar and my local luthier had a repair where a crate of beer had been dropped on it and broke the neck joint and that was just dowelled and glued on with 1/4" dowels, so dowels work on production guitars.

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A neck should be designed to be removed for future resets. Dowels are a waist of time , just do a pure bolt on. Dowels have been historically used on lower end guitars. Yes a dowel will work in answer to your question but there are better joining systems out there. Take your time and learn to do a dovetail. While I agree there is no advantage to using one over a bolt on . Most customers that I sell guitars to will aften mention an known maker and say I won't buy his , he uses a bolt..
Dovetails tend to equate to a higher end instrument , This is what I learned from my customers.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
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John-
Aren't most of your customers looking for Martin replicas?
That would explain the affection for dovetails?

John

I will say Martin style is 90 % of my market but I have done custom designs and some Gibson. I am a self admitted traditionalist and have learned to do dovetails pretty efficiently . A good joint design will carry the load needed , that is all that matters in the end.

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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

I agree with Todd, try it out, perhaps it will work wonderfully for you. It does sound like you'll need a much chunkier heel than I like to see, but different strokes etc...

BTW, to overcome the issue of cracked tenons when going "Cumpiano style", its a good idea to glue the cross grain reinforcements to the sides of the tenon. I fit these before the tenon is drilled or shaped, and extend them all the way into the heel to reinforce this part as well. The heel cap will hide all this, of course.

Sorry for the thread hijack!

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