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Heritage Owners Club

Tenons again- horrific photo


MartyGrass

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The top shows the neck pocket of a LP Standard. I'm told reflects the current production. The pocket is not hand fitted to the neck like in the old way (lower image). The neck can rock in the pocket, making assembly and neck angle adjustment easier.

 

When I saw how the Standards are made, it really shocked me. We discuss whether a long tenon matters on the HOC. But how about rocker fit? It looks like there is minimal neck-to-body contact. That can't be good.

 

Maybe none of this matters

 

Comments?

 

 

 

tenon.jpg

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Could be good for whammy effects. You could grab and pull and push the head stock while a note sustains.

 

Seriously, this is what they are doing?? Someone should post this on the LP forum. I'm not brave enough.

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that pic has been around forever, in fact the first place I saw it was the LPF few years ago

 

I think it was marketing for the historics, I don't think the standards etc really have that much gap in there, it's just a shorter tenon

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I think it's the wood itself that is more important... I've got bolt on neck guitars that I love the sound of, for example...

 

I'm not sure to what degree that they use the roller tenon,so I can't say about that.

 

Neck03.jpgBut pics taken from the top look like a short tenon would glue up to be quite strong.swisscheese8je.jpg

 

 

 

It's cutaway pics from the side that show a bit of a gap.

Neck_Joint_US_vs_Cust-Mod.jpg

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The extra layer that Hfan mentioned is called a fillet. they are usually made of hard maple and as martygrass stated, they go in the truss rod channel, and hold the rod in place.

 

The rocker tenon is a miserable idea for a lot of reasons. Variable neck angle? Have you noticed that the ones with a shallower neck angle feel better?

 

Love the rocker tenon whammy idea! Maybe a new fangled B bender too.

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This is the picture I remember floating around a few years back:

 

tenoncomparison.jpg

 

The rocker tenon was basically made to make fitting the neck faster. I don't know if they still use the rocker tenon, as the partial machine-made Gibson USA models probably don't need them anymore. most of the strength in the neck joints seems to come from the glue on the sides, with the shape tenon that gibson uses. It is narrow and fits into a slot. Other makers like Hamer, PRS, use a much wider tenon, that is also shorter.

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interesting thing about fender gtrs is the butt end of the neck always has full contact with the body

 

even with a long tenon the G/H style never makes 100% contact like that

 

except maybe a firebird, heh

 

I'd like to see a LP style neck joint that has the contact surface of a fender style neck

 

although apparently the much frowned upon "lag bolt" attachment of a fender has superior surface to surface contact strenglth, than glue

 

 

maybe the ideal neck joint is a bolted + hide glued, hybrid of the G & F styles :D

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interesting thing about fender gtrs is the butt end of the neck always has full contact with the body

 

even with a long tenon the G/H style never makes 100% contact like that

 

except maybe a firebird, heh

 

I'd like to see a LP style neck joint that has the contact surface of a fender style neck

 

although apparently the much frowned upon "lag bolt" attachment of a fender has superior surface to surface contact strenglth, than glue

 

 

maybe the ideal neck joint is a bolted + hide glued, hybrid of the G & F styles :D

 

But its not a solid flush connection. Fender usually has router holes on the corners, its not perfectly square.

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that's true, but most of the neck face has contact

 

I guess there is a lolt of variation there too, but ideally it's pretty flush. I know my G&L has pretty much full contact there

 

....argh darned java is screwed up again

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interesting thing about fender gtrs is the butt end of the neck always has full contact with the body

 

even with a long tenon the G/H style never makes 100% contact like that

 

except maybe a firebird, heh

 

I'd like to see a LP style neck joint that has the contact surface of a fender style neck

 

although apparently the much frowned upon "lag bolt" attachment of a fender has superior surface to surface contact strenglth, than glue

 

 

maybe the ideal neck joint is a bolted + hide glued, hybrid of the G & F styles :D

Hmmm..Might be..

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that's true, but most of the neck face has contact

 

I guess there is a lolt of variation there too, but ideally it's pretty flush. I know my G&L has pretty much full contact there

 

....argh darned java is screwed up again

I've actually seen some fender neck heels and pockets that were fit so poorly the had to be shimmed. The thing is though, that doesn't always equate to a bad playing/sounding guitar. I have also seen strat bodies with tele necks installed that played and sounded very good, and tele bodies with strat necks installed that played and sounded very good. At least as far as older instruments, tele's had a square pocket and neck heel and strats had a rounded (slightly) pocket and heel. Which meant that in the case of the tele with the strat neck, there was a very sloppy fit with gaps at the corners of the neck to body area. The strat pocket must be squared off to accept the tele neck which actually isn't a bad fit, but if you take out too much of the pocket a shim will be needed to keep the scale length right and position the neck without a gap. shims are quite often made out of a soft wood like pine or even balsa, because it is easy to shape, and still may well be a great sounding guitar.

 

While I would prefer not to have any of these things on a guitar I own, if I had a great guitar and opened it up to find a crappy joint or shims, would it then cease to be a great guitar?

 

I personally think the end result is what is most important, and not what it took to get there.

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