Official Luthiers Forum!

How do you guys deal with different nut widths for your headstock templates? New template for each nut width? Construct it to the largest width and blend it by hand? Half templates and simply line up the outer edges with the edge of the fingerboard?

Mine is oversized at the nut and gets blended in during neck carving...

I blend that kind of stuff by hand anyhow, so not a big deal for me.

Chris.

I use a cad program..Delta cad...and make half templates which can be used to make one piece templates ..in fact I use the cad program to draw out several things..such as heel templates , brace templates, string layouts on nuts, bridge templates .etc and attach with low tack spray adhesive. since I dont make that many guitars , I can make changes easily. In fact on one of my current builds I didn't like the way the headstock turned out so I redrew it making adjustments to fit the material, made a half template then attached it with two sided tape and rerouted , worked perfect..

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MK5acoustics.com

The templates I use are sized a little bigger at the nut than my widest neck. Once the fingerboard is glued on, it's a simple job fairing in the last inch or so with a chisel.

Yes, okay...mine is also oversized at the moment and I just simply blend it when carving the neck. It's always a little stressful for me because early on I made some funny looking "blends" that didn't really turn out all that well...I haven't done that in a while but it still makes me a little nervous Well thanks for the feedback...it makes me feel better that I'm doing it conventionally.

I blend by hand, as I finish shaping the transition from the neck
to the peghead.

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Gene

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