Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi

I just watched one of Robbie's YouTube videos, he glues the scarf joint and then planes to thickness. In Cumpiano's book the headstock is planed to 1/2" and then glued.

What are the pro's and con's of either method ?

J

Robbie's method is less risky. Even if the scarf isn't very well done, you have plenty of material to flatten and square the headplate glue surface. However, you lose a little bit of length on the shaft piece while doing the thinning, so you need a longer blank to start with.

Can't think of any advantages to Cumpiano's, other than not wasting that bit of length.

I like to have a handstop lip at the neck to headstock transition, so I glue the headstock piece on thick and then chisel it from the back.

Ditto.

It's easy to plane the front, or Safe-T-plane the back, of the headstock to get it to the thickness you want after gluing. I'd say it's totally a matter of personal preference.

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Thinning the headstock after gluing the scarf joint gives you more options for those fancy volute carvings. Otherwise, whatever works for you

If you are going to put in a back plate for headstock strength then there is no advantage. If you are not using a back plate then a 1/2" thick headstock will make the scarf joint show somewhere in the middle of the back of the headstock. I don't think that is as strong and it looks cheap and funny to me. YMMV If you make the headstock a little thicker and transition it to the back of the neck then the scarf joint almost disappears at least from the back. It will disappear from the side too if you use side wings on your headstock. But again it won't matter if you use a back plate.

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Ken Franklin
clumsy yet persistent
https://www.kenfranklinukulele.com

If your neck blank is a little thicker than needed you can gain that lenght by planing the neck surface. I had to do this once when I was trying to squeese a neck out of a board that was just barely long enough but plenty thick. . .

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

After gluing up the scarf joint, I run the top of the headstock over my jointer for a couple of passes. Much quicker than planing by hand and gets it nice and flat ready to accept the head plate. I usually only lose about 1/4" on the neck length doing it this way.

I cut (from the back of the headstock) the headstock to final thickness less the height of the bottom plate (around 0.06") on a bandsaw, using little blocks of scrap wood double-side-taped to the neck/heel to keep it straight and square against the bandsaw fence for most of the cut, then free hand the curve/volute area with the fence out of the way.

My scarf joints end up being completely hidden by the added wings on the sides and the top and bottom plates.

HTH,
Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

Before glueup of the scarf, I cut the back of the neck section(where the the head glues on) to finished neck thickness plus 1mm
I leave the headstock piece about 6mm too thick.

Then afterwards I can thickness the headstock, leaving a smiley volute, and the joint ends up in the transition between neck shaft and volute where it looks much better than across the back of the headstock.
No backplate required that way.

ah yes! The ole board stretcher technique!