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Oversanded taper - reduce thickness of headstock or leave as is?

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SpringywheelSpringywheel Frets: 953
edited August 2021 in Making & Modding
Guys I made a little boo boo on my tele neck today when creating the slope down from the fretboard to the headstock. I oversanded and created a slight depression.

To make it a little less pronounced I’m considering reducing the thickness of the headstock down to about 14.2mm

Would this work ok with my vintage kluson style tuners? The pole piece is approx 25mm tall, so around 11mm sticking out above the face of the headstock. How much further can I sand without running into problems?

I was thinking of sanding the depression out completely and adding veneer to the back to make the thickness back up.
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Comments

  • WezVWezV Frets: 17493
    edited August 2021
    You can go down to about 1/2" without issues.  Most are about 14mm

    Don't worry about the height of the tuners, the actual geometry from nut to string hole hasn't changed.  It will if you veneer the back

    Personally I would level it out and add a veneer to the front
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  • ICBMICBM Frets: 74470
    Vintage ones are thinner, so sand it down to a uniform thickness and the guitar will also sound better :).

    14mm overall is fine, I would just do it and not veneer it.

    "Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski

    "Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein

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  • FunkfingersFunkfingers Frets: 15261
    Springywheel said:
    Would this work ok with my vintage kluson style tuners?
    Yes. The ferrule/bushings push in from the front, overlapping with the split posts as they pass through from the rear.

    Whilst it is true that the ends of the string posts will appear to protrude slightly further than normal, this cannot possibly look as daft as the modern Kluson brand locking 'heads that I tried on an MIM Classic Stratocaster.

    WezV said:
    Don't worry about the height of the tuners, the actual geometry from nut to string hole hasn't changed. It will if you veneer the back.
    If you actually want to alter the geometry, create a shallow wedge to fit between the headstock and the Kluson back plates.

    I have an old Wilkinson USA wedge in aluminium stashed away somewhere. I ought to check the slope angle in degrees.
    You say, atom bomb. I say, tin of corned beef.
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  • SpringywheelSpringywheel Frets: 953
    edited August 2021
    I routed it down to 14mm Feeling a lot happier with it now...that little dip was so unsightly. Just needs some light sanding to smooth it out further.

    https://i.postimg.cc/NG776Y8b/3-E30-C8-C2-5-C3-B-4-F74-9-EF3-524-B9-BC0664-C.jpg
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