Classical Guitar Headstock Detailing Part 1:Source: Guitar Building Articles – The Guitar Neck
Tools and Materials:
Woodworking Marking Knife
Plexiglas Template
Low Angle Block Plane
Drill Press
Takumi Dozuki 9-Inch Super Fine Cut Saw
Woodworker Try-Square
Forstner Drill Bits
3/8″ Milling Drill Bit
Wood Fence for Drill Press
3/4″ Plywood Sacrifice Block for Drill Press
Center Punch
Plastic Tipped Hammer
Band Saw
Note: See table of available tools from this listing
in the table below.
The classical guitar has a long history of placing significance on the detail of the headpiece and especially on the area we call the “Signature”. The Signature is basically the way in which the top edge of the headpiece is fashioned. Each luthier has his or her own design for this area of the guitar, and you should design your own unique “Signature” as well.
On our Classical Guitar Plans that we have available here at Ultimate Guitar Building, we show our own Signature design of our guitars that we build. You should take out a piece of tracing paper and use our plan template as a guide. Then sketch away on your own unique design and see what you come up with.
Make Your Headpiece Template:
After you have completed your design, you should make a Plexiglas template of your Classical Guitar Headstock. Be very precise with this template as you will be transferring errors directly to you workpiece. Be sure to transfer all of the string slot information and the headpiece design to the template very precisely. Make sure to strike a clear center-line down the center of your template. This way you can align everything symmetrically around the center-line.
The raw guitar neck and the headstock should be perfectly square if you followed the previous articles. This will allow you to make your layout lines very precisely. I would recommend the use of a good Marking Knife for this or a very sharp white pencil for the darker woods.
First, clearly mark the center line of the neck, the neck headstock and the guitar nut, by striking a clear straight line. Next take a Woodworkers Try-Square and mark the location of the back side of the Guitar Nut, again with a clean straight mark of the Marking Knife.
Trim the Headstock To Fit The Nut:
Now is time to Trim the Headstock for the Guitar Nut. While holding the Try-Square tightly against the edge of the neck, take a fine tooth dovetail saw such as the Takumi Dozuki 9-Inch Super Fine Cut Saw and begin to cut through the layers of veneer. Before you start, make sure the saw if perfectly vertical and aligned with the mark for the nut. Take slow, long even strokes and check your depth very often until you are nearly through. Then take it really slow until you break through, being careful not to cut into the neck wood.
Mark Your Headstock Layout:
Lay your Plexiglas template on the headstock, being careful to align the center-lines and the line for the guitar nut. Carefully trace with a very sharp white pencil or a marking knife the outline of the headpiece, including the string slots.
Trim The Two Sides Of The Headstock:
Next trim the sides of the headpiece with a pull saw, a band saw or a low angle hand plane. Be cautious to keep everything square and trim up to the line or to the center of the line.
Now carefully mark the centers of the (4) holes you will need to bore for the string slots. Again be very precise as being off even just a whisker, can cause the slots to look crooked.
Once the hole centers are marked take a center punch or a sharpened nail and make a dimple for the drill bit.
Drilling the String Slot Holes:
Chuck up a 5/8″ Forstner Bit in the Drill Press. Be sure to use ONLY a Forstner bit as these will have little or no tear-out of wood grain to repair later. They cut an extremely clean hole as well that needs little additional sanding to finish them off.
Tip #1:
A quick and easy way to drill all (4) holes the exact same distance from the edge of the peg-head is to securely clamp a wooden caul to the base of the drill press. Use this as a fence to guide the headpiece beneath the drill. Now you only have to be concerned about lining up the drill in one direction. Be sure to set the depth stop of the drill press to drill into your sacrifice block about 1/8″ or so.
Tip #2:
You will need to drill the holes with the headpiece veneer down. Place a piece of scrap wood between the headstock veneer and the drill-press table. This will prevent any tear-out what-so-ever and you will be left with perfectly clean exit holes.
Tip #3:
Drill out the remainder of the string slots with the drill press and the Forstner Drill. You can get almost all the the slot cleaned out this way, but may need to touch-up the slots a bit with a milling bit in the drill press. This will give a laser-straight line, with a little adjustment on the drill press fence.
What is Next?
You now have the outside of the (2) edges of the peg-head finished out and both of the string slots cut in and finished off. In the next article we will deal with the holes for the tuning machine rollers, the string ramps at the string slots and some tips on finishing-off the signature head. These are covered in Headstock Detailing Part 2.
Tags: classical guitar string slots, cutting guitar pegheads, guitar headstock, guitar neck, how to build a guitar
November 5th, 2010 at 12:53 pm
Muito bom demais