Neck joins, please educate me

Rocker

Anderson have a flattened V shape on the neck and a corresponding reverse on the body.  The 'normal' [just about everyone else] has a rectangular end on the neck and a corresponding 'square' cutout on the body.  To my way of thinking, the 'normal' method ought to be more secure, yet it needs 4 screws to secure the neck and prevent it moving.  The Anderson uses 2 screws, as far as I know, to achieve the same task.  Fender used 3 screws to secure the neck way back in the 1970s, a choice that was widely derided by players and was subsequently dropped by Fender.

I realise it is more than 2 extra screws, but if the Anderson way works as well as claimed, why are other companies not using that method of fitting necks to bodies.  Afterall a CNC controlled router will follow the instructions absolutely accurately, so machining an angled socket is not much different than a right angled socket.

Please help fill in my knowledge blanks on this.  My Anderson pre-dates the introduction of the angled neck/body join and the neck is absolutely stable.  As it is on my Fenders and Squier guitars, all of which have the conventional neck join.

stickyfiddle

The answer is tradition, mostly. Fender likely started with 4 screws as one in each corner of a rectangular neck plate made sense from an engineering point of view (remembering Leo wasn't a player, but was a bloody good engineer with an eye for manufacturing).

The 3 bolt Fender is no problem, but it's associated with a time where quality control went down the pan and the neck pockets were often cut far too wide, meaning a neck could move in the pocket. It still would've moved with 4 screws in most cases. But guitarists are traditional eejits, so the mantra of "3 bolt = bad" stuck.

The Anderson joint is a much more refined product, but from a manufacturing angle is FAR more complex than a standard Fender neck joint (assuming you mean the one below). Given Fender's 60 year history of their design combined with guitarists' desire for everything to be just like it was in 1957, AND the fact that basically every Fender neck ever made fits on basically every Fender body (tele neck in sort body and scale length issues notwithstanding) they ain't going to change the neck pockets. 

http://i.imgur.com/RSQiY.jpg

A5D5E5

Because everything was done perfectly when Leo first did it.  Any suggestions to depart from the holy formula would bring the end of civilisation as we know it.

ICBM

To be honest I can't see the point in using only two bolts as above. Since the joint will easily accommodate four, why not use them? No matter how secure it is with two, it will always be more so with four. The v-groove is a definite improvement though, since it eliminates any possibility of sideways movement.

The interesting thing about Fender's "3-bolt" joint is that the neck itself is in fact held on with the same four screws as in a "four bolt" one - but two of those go into a metal plate which is then attached to the body with a single (much larger) true bolt - if anything it's stronger. It's not actually the lack of the fourth bolt that causes the issues, it's the poor fit of the neck to the pocket as stickyfiddle said.

I recently fixed yet another of these by the simple means of putting two steel pins into the joint - panel pins driven into the floor of the neck pocket with just the heads sticking up, so they bite into the underside of the neck and produce a positive lock - and the increase in stability and resonance of the guitar was quite astounding, with the same three bolts.

Danielsguitars

That's why I only do set neck long tenon joint, makes more sense to me.
I also can't stand those bloody
ugly bolts

WezV

The Anderson one is actually similar to the old resoglass guitars.

They did it that way because the resoglass shells have quite loose pockets and it helps align the neck. They also only used 2 bolts

Most bolt on neck acoustics only have two bolts.

Its plenty. One bolt would do if the join was designed to take most of the strain... Like that no glue, no screw Japanese style join, was it on a Scott Walker guitar?

WezV

customkits;1070383" said:

That's why I only do set neck long tenon joint, makes more sense to me.
I also can't stand those bloody
ugly bolts

Why limit yourself?

I love a good full width long tenon, but I would be bored if that's all I ever built.

Sporky

ICBM said:

To be honest I can't see the point in using only two bolts as above.

It's faster and cheaper and strong enough.

ICBM

As they say at NASA about the concept of pared-down space missions:

Faster, cheaper, better... pick any two .

Gassage

It's very simple really.

The best and most authentic neck joint is the one Gibson are bringing out next year.

Sporky

I thought NASA's mission statement was "Slower, more expensive, and can anyone find a ruler with imperial and metric graduations?"

Sporky

Rocker said:

The 'normal' [just about everyone else] has a rectangular end on the neck and a corresponding 'square' cutout on the body.

Actually it's a dovetail joint.

Rocker

@stickyfiddle, I am not a guitar builder,or a woodworker for that matter, but I cannot see how the Anderson neck joint is any more complex than the standard square one.  It is only a machining operation same as the standard neck joint.  I had often wondered why there are no alignment pins [similar to what @ICBM used to repair a guitar and documented above] to ensure the neck stays in the right position with no possibility of the neck moving in relation to the body.

If I ever build a guitar, and it is a very remote possibility, I would definitely try for an Anderson angled neck/body joint. I have no idea if it is better or worse than a normal joint.  It is 'different' and sufficiently challenging to be worth the effort.  Perhaps some day......

Sporky

The Anderson neck joint requires surfaces that are angled in two planes. This is much more complex to machine accurately; the Fender style can be done with a 2 axis machine where the Anderson takes a 4 axis to do quickly.

ChrisMusic

A-Wedgie !

Here is what Tom Anderson has to say about the joint on his site:

http://www.andersonguitarworks.com/wedge/

Danielsguitars

WezV;1070450" said:

Why limit yourself?

I love a good full width long tenon, but I would be bored if that's all I ever built.

I just can't bring myself to put ugly bloody bolts in the back and that's from my finishing point of view.

I don't get bored because I'm building different stuff, the set neck tele and strat need working out because it's not standard.
I'll be doing the angled tele neck pocket
tomorrow.

Richardj

Taylor went further and used a single bolt to attach neck to body, worked well enough for them. Parker also use a half round joint on their bolt on models. I had two of them and they were always rock solid.

WezV

customkits;1070646" said:

[quote="WezV;1070450"]
Why limit yourself?

I love a good full width long tenon, but I would be bored if that's all I ever built.

I just can't bring myself to put ugly bloody bolts in the back and that's from my finishing point of view.

I don't get bored because I'm building different stuff, the set neck tele and strat need working out because it's not standard.
I'll be doing the angled tele neck pocket
tomorrow.
[/quote]

Different stuff sure, but all with the same neck join?

I don't find a bolt on neck ugly, just functional. A traditional set neck seems ugly to me because the way Gibson use it allows a poor fit to be hidden.

Full width tenons ala jnrs and PRS allow a lot more gluing surface on less facets, so its easier to get a perfect fit, and nowhere to hide if you don't.

I guess really I am just surprised to see a relatively new guitar builder ruling out so many great design choices that are proven to work. Personally I have always gone the other way and tried out as many variations as possible.

Danielsguitars

I'm not ruling anything out as far as I'm concerned I make sure my joint Is good, that's why they're hand made when it's finally fitted

I got taught to make accoustics first and we use a tapered dove tail joint, there's nothing better to me, it's a perfect tight joint.

This is just what I'm doing, I like it and it works for me.

When I come to do a dc junior special style guitar I'll be using a cap so I can get the joint in further under the cap as I don't like the fact you're routing quite alot of the tenon away when fitting a neck pickup.

Danielsguitars

I forgot to add wezv I'm using a 59 style long tenon which is the same as a junior except there's is wider but more shallow
Mine is typically 38mm wide and deeper but with angled shoulders, Lp is about 38mm and there is nowhere to hide btw
Flat body tele I'm doing is around 36mm deep and I'll probably contour the body heel and put a heel cap on.
The fretboard gets glued onto the body not stuck up in the air like the juniors.
That is maximum contact which seems better to me.

That's the beauty of having a pin router, it's easier to get it right and I slightly oversize then finish, oh and I turn the tenon upside down to make sure it's perfectly square in the pocket with no side to side movement.

The strat has turned out great btw, same wood and construction as the tele and it was played by Ramon goose, look him up, he's done other demos for me.

WezV

cool cool, hope you don;t think I am being critical, except to say limited choices doesn't quite fit with your user name.  I love discussing this stuff - and trying it out in real life.

To me, there are no bad neck join styles.   but each style can be done badly.

customkits said:

 Lp is about 38mm and there is nowhere to hide btw

I am not suggesting you need to hide your work, but gibson has used the traditional join to hide sloppy work. The shorter tenon helped them do this even more. There are what, 8 facets on a les paul neck join.  to me the important ones are the base and sides of the tenon. They are also the ones almost completely hidden by the other joins. Gibson gave up on the base bit totally, and have been known to shim the sides

here is a really badly done long tenon on a 335 (so narrowar than the Lp one).  Gaps down either side and the shadow suggests the base is not sitting flat.  i don't care about the gap at the end as it would be non-structural even if it was tight

 

you can see on this neck break that the only place the neck has actually stuck is the fretboard

As that is a short tenon neck it would be totally hidden until the break happened - long tenon's are slightly better because you can see any gaps -  if you remove a pickup.

customkits said:

.
The fretboard gets glued onto the body not stuck up in the air like the juniors.
That is maximum contact which seems better to me.

I disagree on that bit -  I like to have the whole fretboard attached to one  bit of wood.  We know it works most of the time so I am not against the traditional LP join, but i do think the fretboard crossing over neck to body wood is a source of issues on some.   My first les paul suffered from the body join hump, and I think that is symptomatic of the number of pieces of wood joined in one area and any potential wood movement pulling in different directions..   I much prefer to have the fretboard attached to neck wood, and the neck wood attached to body

I also think a full width tenon gives maximum contact, but importantly its spread over less facets so you end up with 3 big structural glue joins rather than 6 small ones. (not counting end grain joins as they are non-structual).  As i said before, i feel the base and sides of the tenon arer most important so I like to maximise them