Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi

Quick question.. what headstock angle do people aim for

Building a om acoustic if that makes a difference

Kinkead Book says 10° but guitars i have at home are around 15°

Quick look on Internet opened the usual can of worms..loads of stuff about shallower angle making strings feel nicer/softer to play (which sounds good but dunno)

Any input please

Mine are 14 degrees

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

In the area of 15 degrees. One degree or so one way or the other doesn't upset me one little bit.
Tom

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

15 degrees is a good number for a solid head stock and 10 degrees for a slotted head stock.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

We make our necks with the same angle as modern Martin's 15 degrees both paddle and slotted.

I see no way there could be a difference in string feel as a result of head-stock angle -- if string tension at pitch between saddle and nut is 150 lbs it is what it is and will feel the same regardless ----- i certainly could be wrong.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

The feel difference comes about depending on whether the string "locks up" due to friction over the nut when subject to the small tension change caused by fretting. If the string slides over the nut with this small tension change, the string feels less stiff as the whole of the string between the saddle and the tuner becomes the stretchable length. Otherwise its just the length between the nut and the saddle. The higher the headstock angle and the wider the splay of the strings the more inclined the string is to "lock up" (not slide). Whilst it seems remarkable that this can make a difference, players feel it and it makes a difference to the intonation that can be measured (and so compensated for). The limiting scenario is the Fender headstock with no string trees (which can be made to work just fine). At the other end of the scale are lutes with their close to 90 degree headstock angle.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

So the "at pitch tension" of each string (if not locked up) between the nut and tuning peg is something less than the strings "at pitch tension" between the nut and saddle?

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Yeah, 15 degrees or so. I just eyeball it.

I've never done a slot head, but they can be less angled. 15 degrees to the string holes, rather than the top surface.

"Yeah, 15 degrees or so. I just eyeball it.

I've never done a slot head, but they can be less angled. 15 degrees to the string holes, rather than the top surface."



On paddle heads the strings usually wind on the posts slightly above the top surface which lowers the effective break angle of the strings. The rollers on a slot head are below the top surface of the peghead which increases the effective angle slightly. It wouldn't surprise me if the break angle wound up to be about 12 degrees with either style peghead.

In normal playing, the difference in tension between the nut and tuner vs. the nut and saddle equals the friction at the nut. So as a string is fretted, the the nut-to-saddle tension rises, whereas the nut-to tuner-tension doesn't necessarily rise, the difference being the friction over the nut.

Until the differential "shakes out", after tuning, the tension between the nut and tuner can be higher or lower than the tension between the nut and saddle, depending on which way you were tuning. Most players will have experienced this type of temporary hang-up at the nut due to friction.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

That's why I always put a bit of graphite in my nut slots.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

So under Trevor's scenario with strings that don't lock up, the D and G strings will fell a little looser than the e and E strings because the effective stretching length is longer? And they would have a different compensation solution? Very interesting.

Ed

All the strings have different core diameters, so are of different longitudinal stiffnesses anyway (requiring different amounts of compensation) and then there's the effect of the nut to tuner length on top of that. I guess if you really wanted to, you could arrange the nut to tuner lengths so that they compensated for the different core stiffness, then your nut and saddle could be parallel! (But if you use nut and saddle compensation, the nut and saddle can be parallel anyway!)

Dick Dale uses a leftie Strat strung upside down (and his signature model in rightly version has a lefty neck) so that the high strings have the short nut-to-tuner distance; which means you don't have to push a bend as far to get as much tonal shift. That's another way of using this effect.


That's why I do straight string pulls...

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

Touche`

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"