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I have asked this question elsewhere but this is probably a more appropriate forum to do so.

I am most familiar with classical guitars but have built a couple of steel strings with some success. However I have no experience with tail pins or strap buttons.

What I am wondering is whether the tail pin, which is tapered (and I wish everyone would decide on which taper to use!) should be just a tight push fit or should be glued in?

Dave

I don't glue them so I'm about to be proven right or wrong by the folks who know what they are doing.


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dab of glue, they can and will come out

I use a tapered hole and a dab of glue also. The tradition (Martin) is no glue.

I glue because my paranoia makes me think if the pin is tapped in to firmly by an owner the end Block is more prone to cracking with a slight drop.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

There ya have it!


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Historically tail pins were not glued and if well fitted don't need to be.
That being said, I always use a strap button, and screw it in.

Screwed in style here. Never liked the thought of a splitting wedge as a tail pin.

I always glued them in just to be sure. I mostly use screwed in ones now too, if at all.

I should add that my fear of a tail block splitting has led me to use a baltic birch (ply) tail block instead of the more traditional mahogany.

That makes the chance of the block splitting very unlikely no matter how you do the pin.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

If one fits the end pin carefully so that the shoulder is taking the load and not the tapered part the chance of wedging and therefore splitting is eliminated or greatly reduced. Just a little grab before seating. I use a drop of white glue.
L.

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Cut to size.....Beat to fit.....Paint to match.

I'm a split worrier, so I prefer screw-in or pickup jack rather than tapered. But if I was going to install a tapered pin, I'd definitely glue it for safety against humidity expansion. My friction peg guitars slip out of tune when the humidity drops in the winter, and can be difficult to get loose after expanding from comfortably tight in the winter up to summer humidity. I'd hate to have a guitar end up on the floor because of dry weather loosening the pin.

Most of mine are for performing so have pickup Jack's. The ones that don't have friction fit end pins. Never thought about gluing one but I don't see it as an issue either way. One of those " whatever floats your boat" things, I suppose.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I use a tailblock of birch ply faced with about a linings width of mahogany to help with potential splits.
Screwed tailpins anyway.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Exactly! There is a reason why end pins are shaped as they are. I'm also in the no glue category as well. When one of yours needs to have a pup installed who needs a stuck pin that has to be cut back and drilled out.....

One other option that I did was no end pin at all unless the client wanted one. Out of the guitars that I built and sold only about 1/4 of them had clients who elected to have an end pin. When they did though I also had my end pins made from African Blackwood and BRW.... Everyone knows that a guitar with a BRW end pin sounds better if you drink enough.....

This is also much like how people put on strings and shouldn't..... Everyday I see everything from bluegrass locks... to all manner of creative ways to make your Luthier hate you.... Thank heavens for tetanus shots.....

Folks tuner posts and poop..... are tapered for a reason..... In the case of tuner posts the taper forces the string wraps below the entry hole to cinch upward with string tension and become self locking. We have put on tens of thousands of strings with nothing more than the wraps below the hole, with an appropriate number of wraps for the individual string and tension and never, never had one slip. It's also a breeze to restring when there are no knots, locks and copious amounts of excess string.

Regarding poop I'l stay out of it and let someone else slam the door on that one...

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Ann Arbor Guitars

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I have installed pickups on other makers guitars with glued-in end pins. A nightmare fraught with lots of potential catastrophes. It required sawing off the pin, eyeballing the center of the stub and drilling with progressively larger drills. Then, I was at a show one night and the guitarist had a nice old Gibson acoustic. Right in the middle of a song his friction-fit end pin let go and the guitar slipped out of his hands and fell flat on its back on the stage. Based on those experiences I now use screw-in pins when a player requests pins.

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