Official Luthiers Forum!

I was intrigued by the discussion about these joints last week and didn't expect to hear such ardent praise. I'm thinking about trying one and have some Q's for those that have experience.

Do you relieve the butt joint in the center so that you only have to fit the edges?

I have only done M&T, and the M&T keeps the neck nicely aligned when fitting. How do you keep the BJoint straight when fitting?

When using hanger bolts, does the joint have to be perfectly fitted first? (seems like it would be difficult to measure the neck angle etc. without having the neck fastened) Do they come out easily?

Thanks for any opinions!

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Pat

Yes, you relieve the center so that you're only having to fit the outermost 1/8" or so, just like any other neck joint.

The bolts will keep it lined up enough to set the angle and skew. Drill the neck block holes slightly oversized, to give the neck plenty of wiggle room. No, the oversized holes won't hurt the long-term stability of the neck, because once you permanently glue the fretboard extension to the guitar top, it all becomes one very solid joint. Even without gluing it(I often initially string my guitars up for a week or two without gluing it, to test the neck angle) it is one solid joint.

Just like any other joint, you'll have to fit it to the body, first by a coarse-fit, then refine it by chisel and/or flossing with sandpaper. No different than any other joint. It's a simple joint to fabricate, but it isn't any different or easier to fit.

For those who want to try hanger bolts for the first time, buy yourselves a couple of coupling nuts, which are basically one-inch long nuts; they are easy to thread-on and off the studs with just your fingers, when fitting the nut. Beats wrestling with a thin little nut in a recessed hole. When you're done fitting, take-off the coupling nuts and replace them with flanged nuts and check that the studs aren't too long and will be covered by your label(if you care to hide your nuts ).

I do my best to make sure that the joint is as flush as possible even on my guitars that have arched neck blocks. It can be done fairly easily by double stick taping 60/80 grit paper to the joint area and scraping out the but joint with the neck itself prior to gluing the fret board..

I never used hanger bolts and I wonder how they would work out when you need to reset the neck. I'll inset my brass threaded inserts a good 2-3mm so that when the time comes for a neck reset you can just plane/chisel/carve the new neck angle. I guess hangar bolts could be removed.

I'm not sure I understand what you are asking here. Usually when people use a butt joint they "releive" the heel material up to an 1/8" or so along the outer edges. This perimeter of the heal is the only bearing surface which makes fitting flossing much faster (less material needs to be removed). Essentially -- insert or not -- the point where the bolt enters the heel is recessed. The slightly over sized holes in the heel block provide all the leeway needed for a reset.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Right, makes perfect sense if only the outer lines of the heal touch the body. But I make it so that the whole of the heal is flush to the body. And so as such I would have to cut a new angle into the whole of the heal where a bolt would interfere rather than just the outside perimeter, on one of my guitars.

It's probably unnecessary that I do it this way but It's just ingrained in my thoughts that if the heal is totally flush to the body you will get more Voodoo in your tone.

Ah, gotcha. You could pull the bolt to re-set. . .

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.