I have been searching for a good way to thin down the headstock on a CBG I plan on building in the near future but have not found a good example of what I should do.
The neck and headstock will be built out of 1x so without any shaping the headstock will be 3/4" thick. I am going to put a scarf joint on the neck/headstock at about 15 degrees and then glue on "wings" to get the width I want.
What will be the best way to thin down the headstock an 1/8 of an inch or so? should I take it off the front side, back side, or both? Should I sand it off or use a saw? I'm definitely a little confused. I have searched for pictures or video (being able to see it would help me out) but have had a hard time finding anything.
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I set mine up with a trim job from a router...thinning to 5/8". Can be done with good handsaw, a coarse/medium file and plane.
Hi
I'm no expert but personally I make the scarf joint add the wings then use a plane to get the thickness I want for the tuners.But do remember that as the thickness of the headstock reducess the length of the neck gets shorter and the headstock gets longer so dont set the length of the neck or frets until the headstock is right.Good luck sorry I don't have any pictures.
Depends on what tools you have at hand. After it is cut but before you glue the scarf joint, a fast and accurate way is a band saw and then a thickness sander (Typically too short for the planer). I have used a hand saw and a jack plane (An 1/8" is thin for a hand saw and thick for a hand plane alone.) You can use a router to route the inside and leave a rim that you can take off with chisel and or rasp. You can use a plane alone (this will build up your arms.) If it is not too wide, you could use a wide chisel and then a plane or rasp.
I've used a number of different ways of doing this.
Sawing works fine, if you've a good saw and a steady hand. I've also cut multiple slots down the length of the neck and then chiselled out the resulting blocks and then sand. My last one was done using a new electric sander, which worked well...but scared the bejesus outta me. That being said, it will be the way I'll be doing it in the future.
13) Chainsaw and lots of caffeine ;-)
ps - be sure to open the windows
If you use a saw you're going to have to sand it anyway.
I use a belt sander, it's a vertical model with a 6" wide x 48" long belt. When fitted with a 50 or 80 grit belt it has no problem thinning a headstock. I also use it to shape my necks.
Before I got the big belt sander I used to use a smaller hand-held black and decker belt sander which was mounted upside down on the vise attached to my workbench. It wasn't very convenient, but it would get the job done.
If you take it off the front side, you shorten the neck slightly. On my most recent build I had to start over on a neck because when I thinned the headstock the front of the neck became too short to properly fit the fretboard. Due to the design of the box I couldn't reposition the bridge so I just started over on the neck and set aside the "spoiled" neck for a different project.
Thanks for all of your responses! I have a much better understanding of the process now.
I built a mock up neck and headstock out of some 1x2 spruce as sort of a test run to get the idea down a little bit before I actually start on an instrument. After gluing the scarf joint and letting it dry I glued on some "wings" then shaped the headstock with jigsaw. I then took about an 1/8' off the front side with a palm sander. It actually worked pretty darn good imo, especially for my first time.
Like I said above, I thinned on the front side but I stopped sanding right above where the nut would go. So correct me if I am wrong but, I sanded on the front side and my neck length did not change, right?
I can see how if you took an 1'8 off the whole front side evenly it would make the headstock longer and the neck shorter, but what I did looks really nice. Am I missing anything?
Thanks again for your help everyone, I can tell right now I will be learning a lot from this site.
Exactly how i do it . Lol never seen it on a drawing before .
That's the fastest and easiest way to take off thickness ~1/4" and greater by hand, in my opinion. Not sure I could pull it off for 1/8" though as you want to stop the saw short of the final depth and rasp and sand to finish. So you probably only get to cut down 1/16" or so. Probably faster to go straight to the rasp or palm sander.
If you go this route be careful when cutting the depth of each slot so you get a relatively even surface to the depth you want.
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