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PostPosted: Thu May 26, 2011 11:14 am 
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Cocobolo
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First name: Brendan
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I'm having a lot of trouble with getting the shape of the hyoid(?) correct on my headstock to neck transitions. I'm working on a banjo neck at the moment and i have to do a heel stop. i'm avoiding it like the plague. I just can't seem to wrap my head around what the transitions are supposed to be even though i have several drawings and tangible examples.

Does anyone have any layout advice, or methods for the initial cuts that would put me on the right path?

thanks

b

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PostPosted: Thu May 26, 2011 5:30 pm 
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Just don't think about it too much :lol: I'm starting to get a clearer image of the cuts, but I've made two just by whittling away, evaluating the shape as I go. We are talking about something like this, right?
Attachment:
HeadstockBack.jpg

One of the tricky things is understanding the two planes involved... the fingerboard plane, and the headstock plane. IMO, the handstop lip should line up with the nut edge of the headstock, when looking straight on at the headstock. Or from the side, like this:
Attachment:
HandstopProfile.png

That puts the lip underneath the nut, thus strengthening that weak area. My first one came out with the lip too far toward the headstock.

Starting from a 1x3" neck blank with scarf joint, cut out the headstock shape, holding the saw perpendicular to the headstock plane. Then draw a curve around the bottom of it where you want the handstop lip to be, and cut the waste from the sides of the neck. Keep a bit of distance away from cutting into the curve, to leave material for a smooth transition down from the lip to the neck shaft. Then start whittling :) Maybe start by carving the neck shaft up close to the handstop. Then you can start to dig material away behind the lip curve drawn on earlier and form the transition. The shape becomes more clear at this point. But before you go too far, start to carve the headstock's curve up to the lip as well. It is generally flat across its width, so the drawn-on lip curve starts to get eaten away as you carve. Just keep carving on both sides of the lip, to keep track of where it is.

A chisel with bevel side down is useful when carving the lip to shaft transition, but the final refinement is easiest with sandpaper or a round file. I also hollow out the headstock behind the lip using a gouge, to give it a more 3-dimensional shape. But if you use a backstrap, you can't go very deep doing this without digging through it.


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PostPosted: Thu May 26, 2011 6:49 pm 
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Although I don't use peghead "volutes" on my banjos as a rule, I've done a bunch of them over the years. I've found it helpful to think about the volute in two different aspects. The first aspect is in relation to the back of the peghead. This end of the volute on a banjo can be done with a drum sander of the proper diameter thicknessing the peghead and stopping in time to make the point on the volute (if that makes any sense at all). In other words, from the back of the peghead, the volute is cut with a cylinder shape in line with the back of the peghead.

From the neck shaft side, the volute follows the same profile as the neck, but bent up at nearly 90 degrees. Using a curved rasp, shape this part as if the neck was rubber and you bent it upwards.

Hope this makes at least a little bit of sense. It's not hard to do, but I think you have to think about it as an intersection of two different pieces of geometry--one basically a plane with a radiused end (the back of the peghead part), and the other basically a cylinder that has been bent upwards (the neck shaft part).

Dave


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PostPosted: Thu May 26, 2011 7:35 pm 
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Brazilian Rosewood
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I believe Arnt Rain has a pretty good how-to about this...an archive search might turn it up...


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PostPosted: Fri May 27, 2011 7:28 am 
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Cocobolo
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First name: Brendan
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the suggestion of "not thinking about it too much" is a really good one.

I think i try too hard to get it right too quickly and end up with uneven results.

i'll setup some dummy necks and mess around.

thanks guys

b

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