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I'm doing my first, and probably only, steelstring slothead. I'd love to see a picture or two detailing the ramped areas of the slots, the end near the nut and any angles/dimensions that are normal. So far my neck is roughed out and the tuner holes are drilled and tuners test-fitted, and four holes are drilled that I need to connect in pairs to open up the slots, thanks to a visit to my local friendly (real) luthier.

Thanks!

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Peter Havriluk

Hi Peter,
I'm working on my second slothead, first for a steel string. I just got it to this point yesterday.

My approach is to sketch the headstock to scale, both side and top view including tuner posts and nut slots. Then you can draw in the strings and see how much ramp size and angle that you need for string clearance.

This one's still rough - I'll fine tune after the neck carve is done. I'll probably bring the points of the ramps closer to the nut (currently 10.0mm). The ramps are 33.5 degrees to the headstock face on a 14 degree headstock. The slots are 20.0mm wide.

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Craig

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Luthiers can happen even in the best of families. No one knows why.

Thanks, Craig. This is a welcome start.

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Peter Havriluk

My preference is for square ramps. (See Hauser or Torres). No chance of strings rubbing on side of ramps as can sometimes happen with round ramps. I used to square off the end of the slot closest to the nut. Eventually that faded and I was happy leaving the slot round on both ends. I always used a 12 headstock angle since the location of the rollers increases the break angle at the nut.

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Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

I build slot heads all the time. Here are a few things to consider:

1. Keep your eye on whether you are leaving enough wood between each slot and that slot’s side of the headstock. As you refine each slot, that strip of wood can get pretty thin if you are not careful.

2. Screwing down the plates for the tuners is often tricky, due to the problem described in number 1. You need to be careful not to let the pilot holes go all the way through, and you will probably have to nip off the ends of the little screws before installing them.

3. As you rasp the ramps, it is super easy to leave marks on the slot walls, which you then have to refine, leading to more of the problem described in number 1. Taping something very durable, like aluminum flashing, to the walls of the slots can help avoid this.

4. Having a cutting tool like a chisel cut into a slot wall from one face of the headstock, and try to cut to the other face, risks chipping out wood on the other face. It is often better to just cut 2/3 of the way, then clean up from the other side.

5. All of the above makes it worthwhile to think about a simple hand router jig for cutting the slots. Using a jig won’t eliminate the hand work, but it can give you a better starting place with less work.

Good luck with the project!

I'm just putting finish on my first. I came upon the number one problem more than once and I haven't even fired the tuners yet...