Official Luthiers Forum!

In Benedetto's archtop building video, he's shown gluing a backstrap right to the back of the headstock/neck without making a recess for it first. I've always made a little recess first with a drum sander and glued the backstrap into that.

How does it work doing it with no recess. It seems to me like you'd always be fighting this feathered edge that would never quite get nice and flat, and that the wood right at the edge would be so thin as to be practically see thru. What am I missing?

Generally, I'm curious how people are doing backstraps on new construction anyhow.

I've had your experience with the feather business. Is his backstrap thicker?

Thanks, Todd. It never would have occurred to me to paint it. Yuck. I like the way mine looks but I hate actually doing it. There's so many things that can go wrong when I'm sanding into the neck like that. Maybe I just need to fixture it a bit better than just setting up a fence.

-John

On my backstraps, I drum sand an indention in the neck shaft and blend it into the back of the peghead. Then I vacuum bag the veneers to the neck blank. Here are some pictures that hopefully tell the story...

Dave

What vacuum setup are you using? How do you keep stuff from moving around as you draw the vacuum? I've been thinking of picking one of those up for gluing up electric guitar bodies (tops to backs) but now you have me thinking it's useful for other things as well.

Does Titebond work OK for this? Maybe that's a dumb question but I can't help but think that it would take much longer for moisture to leave the joint when it's bagged like that.

I'm using one of the "Joe Woodworker" venturi/tank type pumps with the vacuum switch that cycles it. Got the bag from the same place. Works .

As far as keeping things in place--I just sort of hold it in place through the bag until the vacuum pulls all the way to hold it tight. I haven't had any problems with slippage. I use epoxy for everything on the neck--on banjo pegheads, the peghead itself is so thin before the veneers go on that I think any water based glue would add a lot of risk of warping. I've actually had that happen before and it ain't pretty....

Dave

Things should dry out faster in a vacuum. I don't know how that relates to glue setting, but I've never had a problem with any glue using vacuum clamping.

Mike

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Mike Lindstrom

I asked Bob about that at the workshop I attended in his shop and he is spraying it on now.