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Does anyone know where I can find a generic layout for a snakehead headstock? e.g. click for example

Thanks.

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Mmmm....wood.

Take any typical headstock and narrow the tip .... what else do you need to know ??

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

Maybe I need to clarify...I'm quite new to this luthiery thing. I'm looking for a headstock on which the tuners are set further inward up the head, reducing the string break angle off the nut to the tuners. All my guitars have paddle heads.

Thanks!

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Mmmm....wood.

Hey, Oddman (I wish I didn't have to call you by a 'handle'),

Please take this as a bit of serious, considerate advice: On paper, in full scale, draw a rectangle big enough to include your headstock (before you shape it), and also several inches of your instrument neck. Better still, draw in the whole fretboarad. Draw in the string paths to the nut, with all the precise strings spacings and such, and from there to the desired location of the tuner posts. Remember that you are aiming at the inside curve of your various tuning posts. You are striving for a straight line to the tuner posts....yes? no? Draw your string paths that way. Then spend some time on a separate piece of paper sketching snakehead shapes that please you, and which accommodate your desired tuner post locations.

Now...and this is VERY important...In fact, it's HUGELY important: Buy your desired tuners, and note their gear casing dimensions. Also their tuner key shaft length. Draw them on your plan. Then, and only then, look at your sketches and draw the snake head outline that pleases you most, and which allows for all these other factors.

You will go back forth, and experiment with numerous subtle differences in shape. Some shapes will place your tuner buttons too close to the edge of the peg head. Others won't provide the string path you want, but you will eventually arrive at a snake head shape that pleases your eye, and places your tuner posts precisely where you want them to be.

I am not talking down to you, man. I'm really not. I want you to succeed and come out better than your wildest expectations, and you can! Just keep drawing it out on paper until it works for you. It might take MANY iterations of your basic plan drawing. Nothing beats a full scale plan. Then glue your paper down on a little piece of pattern stock and cut it out and trace it on your headstock blank.

You will be fine!

Patrick

Hey, Oddman,
I've just had a better idea, and fewer words, too! Google up some pictures of 1933 or earlier Gibson L-5 guitars. Then Google up some Stromberg images, too. Find a snake head that is straight on that you can print out full scale for inspiration. Now...don't copy it precisely, because that wouldn't be cool. That would be theft of someone else's design idea. Let that shape inspire you to design your own shape, incorporating your string paths and such. See what I mean? Now...press on, and dig in, and you will be just fine!

Patrick

James,

Seems like if you get the break angle off the nut you can live with and lay it out with the proper distance between the tuning machines, it would just be a matter of measuring the distance from the button to the post and drawing your peghead outline in the gap. Make some full scale drawings and play around with it until you find something you like.

Tim