Official Luthiers Forum!

I've been pondering the following questions for quite some time, so here goes:

How do you determine tuner hole location for a paddle peghead that is your own design?

Why are peghead veeners 1/16" thick, can it be thicker, and If so how much thicker?

I'm planing on using Grover Sta-tite open back tuners for a Weissenborn style guitar.
All help will be appreciated.

-Ron

Ron,

I would draw the peghead to scale on paper with the nut and string spacing exactly how it would be on the finished instrument. I would then plot the potential tuner locations and the string paths to the potential tuner locations to see if there is any string interference with the posts. As long as you know how far the tuners can go from the edge, you should be able to come up with your locations pretty quickly and know if they will work or not.
By the way, I assembled the base of the sander and it is up and running. If you need to dimension any wood, shoot me an email.

Tony

_________________
http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Hi Tony,
Thanks for outlining you method. I'll give It a try.
I have one of the plates thicknessed already. I did It with a sanding board with 2 handles and 120 grit stick-It sandpaper. It worked surprisingly well, though a bit exhausting and dusty. I may send you an email for the other plate. Thanks.

-Ron

Hey Ron, I like your peghead design.
I space them 1 1/2" apart.
Lay it out and see how it looks.
You've got that bulge at the bottom of the P.H.,
so, whatever works and looks good.
Mo pics of the build?

Hi Alan,
Thanks for your help and the compliment.

I havent braced the top and back yet so theres not that much to see. Below are some pics of what i've done so far. I'll post a picture of the lap steel in my avatar as well.

Hi Todd,
Thanks for sharing your method. I will be using separate machine heads. What is the max thickness for your headplates, 1/8?

-Ron

Yes, your headplate overlay can be thicker than "the standard"...within reason. Too thick (say 1/4" or greater and you will run into two potential issues:
1. Your strength of the neck under the nut location will be diminished due to thinner neck stock. (see total thickness note below)
2. if you use the headplate as the "slot/seat" to secure the nut, the rear clearance of the strings exiting the slots will also diminish and may be compromised...at least on a standard guitar. The raised nut on your instrument will probably not be an issue.


The key dimension will be the overall thickness of the headstock. For post tuners, it should be somewhere around 1/2" to 9/16" thick total (including overlay material).

_________________
Hank Mauel

Hi Hank,
Thank you for taking the time to answer my question. Sometimes you learn to do things a certain way from books, the internet etc... but you don't know how far you can go.
I learned a lot about the peghead from this thread, so thanks to everyone who contributed.

-Ron

That blue lapsteel is beyond cool.

_________________
"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Thanks for the compliment Chris

-Ron

Hi Todd
It's a good answer to a very basic question. Thanks

-Ron

Hi Todd,
The head plate is .125 Thanks

Ron