Fascinating stuff!
(e.g., Mr. De Rocher's three same-direction plies)

The best sounding guitar I've ever played and owned was my 1890s How Orme. And If you've ever seen a Howe Orme neck joint, you'll understand that the solidity of the connection between neck and body is not as important as people imagine.

But you're right - from a marketing point of view the closer your views to your customers, the better. Even if they are wrong.

The Howe Orme neck joint doesn't need much flossing.

Same (ed: stuff) we talked about with you and Jon WBL. No best practice just stuff to avoid + trades to be made. Cumpiano works fine until whacked and tenon shears on the grain lines (see the sketch). The fix is cross-grain reinforcement, but that can cause problems or useless if done wrong.



Re: Q1: Three ply lam your bud is using is fine. Material behind the barrel nut is not doing anything useful and reduces tenon tensile strength, but even with bolt cutout, still effective. Moving the reinforcement outside the bolt access prob helps, but the joint is over-strength already. Lams support each other, so splitting of crossgrain not that big a deal, but could see compressive fail. Loose tenon is fine - just has to be long enough insertion into heel to avoid a glue line fail in shear or fail of outer layer of tenon. Plywood just more lams, so reduces tensile strength and has same issue as any laminate w/ reinforcement not being very efficient. Also heavier, but prob not issue (grams)

Prob need to label these and edit. Gen Y's won't get hardware store, so just footnote with Cump web site link. Shot of Jon's neck in stuff I sent last week. Section thru tenon screen cap off Fusion...you can label

Re: Q2...no - FPL handbook no xgrain shear number because compression failure/other fail before the stress gets close to what's needed. Read text - all there



Re: Q3..any insert not full length causes stress riser at edges...prob not issue because of how o/s system is. Could taper, but PITA to make

One of the reasons I like the furniture screw (KD) and insert over the hanger bolt and KD nut is that I like to use a countersunk hole in the heel block. With the nut you need 2 steps in the countersink, one for the flat part of the nut and one for the threaded part. Using those, I had to countersink the block before I closed the box. that wasn't a big deal but it made lining up where to drill the holes in the neck a bit more annoying.

With the screws, I can measure for and drill the holes with the body completed and neck angle cut on the neck heel. I recently bought a reverse countersink form Elevate Lutherie so I can do the countersink after.

This is what I bought. I haven't used it yet but it is exactly what I had been looking for. when I saw that Chris was offering them for such a reasonable price, I stopped looking. I needed something like this to fix a problem with the heel block in my last one. I thought about reshaping a spade bit but I was worried that the thin shaft would cause me problems Nd I would get an ugly cut.

https://elevatelutherie.com/product/nec ... unterbore/

This is what I bought. I haven't used it yet but it is exactly what I had been looking for. when I saw that Chris was offering them for such a reasonable price, I stopped looking. I needed something like this to fix a problem with the heel block in my last one. I thought about reshaping a spade bit but I was worried that the thin shaft would cause me problems Nd I would get an ugly cut.

https://elevatelutherie.com/product/nec ... unterbore/

SteveSmith

What are the little brass dowels in that neck for? They look almost like dowel centers.

Ed