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This is likely a stupid question and definitely not the first I have asked here. . . I am toying with the idea of learning to do the “V joint” for pegheads. Every description of the process that I can remember, have been on classical necks. Obviously steel strings will stress the joint more and the peghead will be much thinner (reducing glue surface area). Am I asking for trouble?

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

It's plenty strong enough for steel strings, but it's dang difficult to construct Hauser's covered V precisely by hand. There are several other variations of the V joint, I suspect most are strong enough for ss if properly constructed.
I've only done one, and it was for nylon strings. It was not all that precisely fitted, but would hold string tension before it was glued. The genius of the joint is that everything is in compression, so the glue is only needed to keep the headstock from falling off when you take the strings off.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

I think it's more than strong enough to withstand the string tension. Don't forget that it has some mechanical strength. If you really want a V joint that 'locks', then the one that features on French Romantic guitars is the one. It's not the through V that is found on modern Classicals - the V at the front of the peghead is wider than the V at the back of the peghead. Kind of like a dovetail joint.

I've done it on 3 steel string guitars, it works fine.

I have done it on perhaps a dozen steel string guitars and one let go. Spanish graft makes a great peghead joint, whether steel or nylon string.

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Stay with the happy people.
--Reynolds Large

Yeah, that's the Hauser covered V. Here's the plan I drew for it, based on Hauser's Munich model circa 1850.

I cheated a little, I cut it as a through V and then covered it with a headplate. I've got photos somewhere.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

Thanks guys. My chops are definitely not up to the task of attempting the Hauser covered V (I should have been more clear). I was thinking of the through (Romanillos?) V. I was also thinking of using a longer narrower V and most likely a veneer on the front of the peghead but none on the back.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

I do a thru V starting about 1" wide with headstock face veneer only

I use a modified V-joint on all mine with the laminated necks. I do it without shoulders to simplify the fit up.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

I'd love to see a photo or two if you don't mind.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

I'll let Brian answer but it sounds like the V joint that was done by the Panormo's - what I term the shoulderless V.
It's a little easier to execute because you can plane the male part to fit, in other words the shoulders don't get in the way.

If you're going for a V joint, go shoulderless.

There was a thread on another forum recently where the OP's expensive classical had been damaged in a handling accident (airline, iirc). No obvious case damage, no obvious impact marks on the neck/head but a failed shouldered V joint. I looked at it and thought "well, that was an accident waiting to happen". I don't think the owner declared it as such, but I would say it was a hide glue joint. At the shoulder you have end grain to end grain (at least this one seemed to). One oblique shock to the headstock would immediately fail that end grain joint and simple crack propagation does the rest. The joint was held together by the head facing but completely failed on the V joint glueline. So that sort of joint with hide glue is just waiting for the wrong sharp knock to fail, whereas such an impact would go incident free on other joint types.

Without shoulders, no end grain to end grain, problem solved.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

Alan Carruth has mentioned more than once, and I agree with him, that in the event of a fall, it's actually to both the guitar owner and the luthier's advantage to have the hide glued V joint fail on the glue line. Think of it as a "sheer pin" or fusible link type of deal, in that if something is going to happen during an accident/fall that will likely cause damage, create an engineered weak area that is easily repaired. In the case of a hot hide glued V joint, introduce some fresh HHG to it, and clamp 'er down, then tell the guitar's owner to come pick it up the next day. Now, if the V joint(or any other headstock attachment) had held up, who knows where the energy from the fall would have broken/fractured, or otherwise weakened(visibly or invisibly).

Much like today's cars are engineered; while they look terrible after what appears to have been a minor accident, and a lot of old timers will stand around and say something like "they sure don't build them like they used to; why, I had a '64 Buick that took a much bigger hit than that and it only bent the bumper and one fender. Broke my wrist, the hit was so hard, but the car, it was fine!". But the driver of the new car wasn't hurt, because the -car- crumpled like a beer can, absorbing the impact's energy.

Since accidents DO happen, I wouldn't look at a V joint that failed after a fall as a failure, but rather, as a feature!

Carry-on....

Oh, and yes, I do a HHG'd V joint(with shoulders) on some models, too. All are steel string.... No failures yet, but then, nobody's dropped one(or told me they have.. <lol>).

Some pics of mine.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

As always, lots of great i fo here. Thanks all. I was in doubt that I would like the look of a shoulderless v, but those sure do look nice. The reason I am interested in trying this is because I just came onto a bunch of mahogany that is a little too short for necks, but great to practice on. If I get one right, it won't be too short anymore. . .

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

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

Check the tutorial section Brian, I think that's where I learned to cut a v joint headstock.
I have a couple of dreadnaughts utilizing the sholdered v joint in circulation with no reported issues. My preference is for the shouldered v joint as I find the thinner diamond volute more aesthetically pleasing.

Steve

Ha! If it were that good an idea there'd be a lot more around.

If a guitar falls apart in its case without any damage to the case I call that a design flaw! Same as the air bags in a car going off under hard braking...no impact damage to the car but breaks the driver's neck...

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

Appaerently, Trevor, you've never owned a Gibson Les Paul. I just delivered an Alverez dreadnaught yesterday that I repaired a broken neck from a face first fall in it's case. In the shop is an Ibanez RG with a broken neck from a face first fall from a stand. Stuff happens and while neither of these repairs was particularly challanging a less expensive repair would be welcomed by many an unfortunate player. I'm siding solidly with Grumpy here.

That's just more design flaw of a different type; short grain through a narrow, thin neck with a cut-out for a truss rod! Les Paul headstocks are accidents that just keep on happening. Wrong selection of just about everything. There's no good excuse for poor design. Design is more than just thinking of a look and cutting wood. How many Strats do you see with broken off headstocks? Sure, you can still break them, but the occurrence is minuscule in comparison to LP's. And a feature of the Strat neck design? If your guitar gets beaten enough to break one, just bolt on another.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

i think this is more a function of material, rather than design...maple is a jazillion times stronger than mahogany. but i get your point

A LP with a one piece neck, 17* headstock angle that creates very short grain, and about 1/8" of wood behind the truss rod, to me is a design flaw. Why Gibson would not adress this is beyond me, although that is how I got a new Studio for $365.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Trevor, any which way you want to look at it, fact is, the joint didn't fail under normal use; it failed from a fall. I've never seen a case that showed visible damage from a simple fall, but all too often, the guitar does indeed show damage.

And in this case(no pun intended), the damage was minimal and simple to repair, to 100% of its original form, I'm sure.

The repair wouldn't have been any big deal, I'm sure. But the reason the story was told (on the other forum) was that the player was out of his home town, heading for his classical guitar performance exam the next day, which could not be rescheduled, and he's without a playable instrument because (maybe) the case just fell over. Chance of getting it repaired in time - zero, even if he could find an appropriate person in a strange city. I don't know what the ultimate outcome was, but the big issue for that guy was the consequential damage even though he was pretty upset about his damaged guitar.

I've travelled the world with guitars. On one occasion one of my guitars went on its own 3 week holiday in Mexico, of all places. I didn't expect to see that one again. When it did eventually arrive back in Sydney the case was totally trashed, but apart from some minor bruising of the back of the neck where it sat on the support in the case (the padding had worn through to the wood) the guitar was fine. The point I'm making is that it is relatively easy to design a guitar to take minor mistreatment without it falling apart. "Safety valves" are fine, provided you can set them to the right pressure.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

Exactly. Material selection is just another aspect of proper design.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au