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The location of the scarf joint line across the back of the head can be controlled to some extent by either taking wood off the top of the head or the back of the head when bringing it to final thickness. That being said, I haven't paid too much attention to this. Usually I just hide the line with a veneer. However today for some reason I was pondering if there is an optimal location if it is your intention to not have a veneer. For example, can the line be disguised within the transition from the neck to the head? Is there a volute that is a good shape for disguising the line? Or should the line be moved up so it is between the first pair of tuners so that the only part that shows is in the space between the tuners? Does anyone even care?

Pat

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There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

Hi Pat,
In order to join the neck and peghead and not have the joint show on the face of the peghead you can do a "covered V joint" such as Panormo and Hauser used. David Schramm has some nice pictures and a good explanation of how it is done. Some of the old guitars I have use this joint. A modified version of it could probably be done with a router and dovetail bit with a bit of jigging.The join line would show on the face of the peghead at the nut/fingerboard junction and be hidden by them.

You can't hide the line on the side of the headstock, but the line on the back looks much better if positioned right in the angle transition. The way to do it is to thin down the shaft piece as close to the final neck thickness as possible before you glue the scarf joint. I taper the shaft piece from 3/4" at the 12th fret to 5/8" at the nut, which is a good safe thickness, so try that. Keep track of how much you reduce the thickness during neck carving, and on the next one you can thin the shaft piece that much further to get the scarf line just right. I usually end up taking 1/16" or so off the thickness during carving, so I could use an 11/16" to 9/16" shaft taper, but my volute hides the scarf line anyway.

When tapering the shaft thickness, plane down the top side (fingerboard glue surface) rather than the back. The nut line moves forward as you reduce the thickness, so you can squeeze longer necks out of shorter blanks that way. And assuming the blank had minimal runout to begin with, that keeps the minimal runout surface on the back of the neck, which feels nicer for the thumb if you use an open pored finish.

I usually glue the head piece onto the back of the shaft so as not to have the glue line on the shaft.
I put a veneer on top to hide the joint.
It seems all electrics have the head glued onto the top of the shaft.
I've been pondering any advantages other than appearance to glue it on top?
Dan

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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

This is the only scarf joint I've done.

It's an electric

But it shows some interesting possibilities with a scarf & wings on the peghead.

Hopefully these photos explain what's going on.


Kevin Looker

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

What I'm getting from Pat's original post is that he may not want to add the peghead veneer, but still wants to hide any scarf joint line.

If you don't want to do the covered Vee joint another possibility would be to first take a slice off the top of the peghead piece, do the conventional scarf joint, then glue the slice back on, aligning the grain to match the scarfed piece. It would be kind of a "stealth scarf". If well done the glue lines would be almost undetectable.

Very cool! I hadn't thought of shaping the headstock to a triangle before gluing ears on. Looks a lot nicer than a constant width center part.

How about making the ears out of a different species than the neck itself? Peruvian walnut would look great next to that wood. What is it, anyway? White limba, primavera, achihua?

Thanks guys. Those are some great ideas. I'm currently doing a ukulele and the only thing I've done on the neck is the scarf joint. It's still thick and I want to keep it that way until I saw of some blocks from the end to use for a stacked heel. I was thinking that after I did that, I could thin both the head and the neck from the top to keep the nut line close to its present location and the scarf line on the back close to where I'll make the volute.

Pat

_________________
There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

White Limba aka Korina. Based on the original Gibson flying V which didn't have a scarf joint but did have the wings. Ironic how the shape & the wings does a pretty effective job of hiding the joint.

Kevin Looker

_________________
I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

I usually use 1 1/2" thick wood. The down slope starts at the nut so once the head is thicknessed that moves the scarf well forward. I think that makes it stronger. Once I add the wings, headplate and back veneer you never see it.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Dennis and Kevin; Nice work!

I've thought that there must be a good way to get the joint right under the volute, but so far have just used the back strap.

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Pat