Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello,

Anyone ever considered or have used a festool domino for neck/body joints? Essentially this would be a butt joint (some of my favorite builders use this method) but with the added strength of a traditional Mortise and tenon. There would also be great wood to wood contact.

Thoughts on this?

-Jordan

I recently saw a video series where a guy is doing just that. He hasn't completed the guitar yet and I am waiting for the subsequent videos to come out. Honestly, I don't expect it to hold up (at least not in the long term). I may be wrong but it doesn't seem up to the task. I don't know how well fitted the dominoes actually are since I have never used the system so there may be adequate glue surface area and contact. Personally, I am not confident just using glued mortice and tenons on steel strings. It just feels (to me) like you need to add either the mechanical lock of a dovetail or a bolt(s). I am totally open to people with real world glued mortice and tenon experience to correct me here though.

When you say some of your favorite builders use butt joints, you don't mean glued butt joint with no bolt do you? That would be gluing the end grain of the neck to the sides and would not be up to the task. I use a bolt on butt joint, is this what you mean (keep in mind I am not implying that I would be listed in anyone's group of favorite builders!); I too adopted that method based on the success that others, whom I respect, have had.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

I personally see no advantage over the more common methodology -- sort of reminds me of the doweling method used by Vega and others (three dowels) and a butt joint.

Yes I am intrigued by that too.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I am referring to bolted joints not glued. Huss and Dalton does this. Yeah?

Indeed they use a butt joint actually almost identical to the original Taylor's. I believe that advantages to this joining system are easy repairs and adjust-ability. Not the case with the domino's.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

So this is a butt joint that is only bolted?

I'm using a biscuit/spline joint for my classical guitars.

I can't find some pictures of my own setup. Here are some of Peter Obergs Website.





And a sanding jig I made for this purpose. I put some 3M Stikit Self-adhesive (220/320) on top of it.
Works great and you can "dial-in" the neck angle very accurate (if you need to).





Best regards,



Edzard

You are talking about a $1000-1300. biscuit joiner?!?

Bolts and angled dove tails create some joint compression --- dowels, splines, biscuits do not.

I believe the old Taylor method tack glued the fingerboard extension only, no glue on the butt.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

That kind of money could buy a mighty fine router, bits, neck joint fixture and a bunch of neck blanks.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

If you haven't had to make hundreds of mortise and tenon joints on a deadline, you wouldn't appreciate a Domino. It's not even close to a biscuit joiner but if all you need is alignment and not strength, a biscuit joiner is what you need. The different sized mortises the Domino cuts are .5mm wider and taller than the matched grooved tenons to allow space for glue to deposit and air to escape. I wouldn't use it in neck joining as the square tongue and groove w/bolt works fine and allows for fine tuning should anything shift laterally during neck block installation or future vertical neck adjustments. The Domino is a one shot deal with no flexibility other than plugging the mortises in the neck block with a domino and recutting them with a wedge attached to the Domino faceplate. You would also need at least .25mm precision in making those cuts so some kind of jig would be needed with or without a Domino.
All in all not a great idea.

I have used both sizes of the Domino for building furniture and doors, its a wonderful tool for those projects. Its incredible precision would be the exact reason not to use it for attaching a guitar neck - it would allow very little opportunity to adjust fit.

I'd have great confidence in its stability, but it would allow no adjustment or fine tuning of neck fit. Many better options based on my limited building experience.

Just goes to show you that people can rationalize anything.
Some can rationalize a Lamborghini...but then they are probably in the 1/10th of 1%.
I could rationalize a Karman Ghia...

Oh I thought this was about Fats Domino....nevermind, carry on.

Don't knock it if you haven't tried it.
In 1980,.I built my first steel string acoustic following David Russell Young's book.
I followed his instructions and used a butt joint for the neck joint. Mahogany neck, Indian Rosewood body. Using only epoxy. No tenon, dovetail, or spline. 35 years later, at full tension, ie. Tuned to correct pitch, the neck joint has not separated one iota.

Interesting Jay! I wouldn't have thought it possible, though I guess epoxy would be the most likely adhesive to work in that application. Although, with an epoxied butt joint you are going to have trouble when it comes time to do a neck reset.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Piece of cake.

With modern adhesives permanently attaching a guitar neck has always been easy -- butt joint or otherwise. I do not know of any famous maker using this strategy. Lets hear from the repair guys --- good idea?

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

BTW -- I have re-set necks Spanish heel and others by detaching the back and tipping the block/foot then re-gluing, actually works, but probably not too cool to do.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Rhetorical question ==================> Why?

There are so very many excellent neck joint implementations available to us all such as the simple dovetail, pretty hard to beat for simplicity and effectiveness or any one of the various implementations of a bolt-on neck why do we need to rethink this.

Ken's right as usual neck joints need to be serviceable so that in the future your hard work and artist's eye that created the instrument that instrument does not become relegated to being a wall hanging because the unserviceable neck joint prohibits resetting the neck when it's time.

Sure you can Dremel it off, use a chain saw, or even my personal favorite a claymore.... but in the professional world of guitar repair a neck reset is not supposed to be something that is easy to spot once it's been done.

Translation: The standard for neck resets is not a hacked up, botched job by someone who does not know their limitations but instead a decent neck reset may only be something that can be spotted by a seasoned pro with the assistance of black light to spot the finish touch-up.

Folks often don't take care of our creations and it's not uncommon for any acoustic guitar to need a reset 10 - 30 years out. I had the unpleasant duty of telling a small Luthier client recently that their 3 year old, $4,000 Luthier built guitar needed a neck reset after only three years...... three years....!

Of course prices for neck resets from a seasoned pro vary widely from market to market but in my area come neck reset time it's not uncommon for the bill to be north of $600. Keep in mind too that when changing the geometry of a musical instrument such as a guitar it's often the case that the neck reset is not the only thing that needs addressing when it's time.

A decent neck reset will also include a precision fret dress because things change and wood moves over time. Change the neck angle and your fret plane will benefit from being trued up again.

Additionally at neck reset time it's not uncommon for there to be top cracks as well next to the fret board extension. Lifting bridges also seem to like to conspire with necks in need of being reset. Did I mention a new nut as well.

So that $600 can easily become$1,000 or more.

If someone is going to go to all of the trouble, expense, etc. to build an acoustic guitar the concept of serviceability should be one of the top three things on your list. This also includes the design as well - designs that were not considering serviceability in time rarely have much residual value and again they often become wall hangings, boat paddles, or my other favorite, a target for some target practice...

I often read threads on forums where the title could be "Box Elder Good For Tonewood...." What we are of course seeing is a poster who's tree blew down and they want to see if it can be suitable as a guitar. I "get that" and admire repurposing things for unintended uses.

But just because one has a Festool this or that does not always mean that it has to be used to create a neck joint.

So my message is..... serviceability should ALWAYS be very high on your list when building guitars. Ignore it and you are just not considering the considerations that working in the trade Luthiers have to consider every day AND that wonderful, thoughtful gift or beautiful guitar that someone purchases from you will at some point become a very unwelcome nightmare for them when they realize that their investment, faith and trust in you, may have been misplaced.....

Is this what you wanted from me Ken? Hope all is well with you, nice day here in Meechigan.... too!

Oh yeah - one last thing I forgot to address.

Wanna know why many Luthiers will not work on Ov*tions and why come neck reset time the owner is often SOL?

Ep*xy used in the neck joint.

peace

Well -- certainly what I expected.

Early on, I in fact used David Russel Young's patterns and many of his tooling ideas -- yes I know he is a bow maker now, but at the time he had published some of the best info available. Anyway I simply rejected the idea of the epoxied neck joint for all the reasons Hesh has cited and all of the six or so DRY builds had traditional neck joints.

Yes Glorious MI weather today!

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I agree on the alignment and strength issue. Though, I thought Dominos gave a bit more strength than traditional biscuits. Still, I wouldn't engineer in some unattached tenon with strength in mind. Just seems a lot of effort for a butt joint. And lots of money too. I understand a lot of people love the butt joint. Something about it makes me worry.

"but if all you need is alignment and not strength, a biscuit joiner is what you need."

The Domino joint is a mortise and floating tenon joint and is very strong and precise. The machine cuts half of the mortise with the appropriate sized cutter in each piece of wood being joined and a tenon ranging from 4mm T x 17 mm W x 20mm L all the way up to 14mm T x 28mm W X 140mm L is glued into at least one side if the joint will be taken apart in the future or both sides if permanently installed. Small pieces may only need one 4mm tenon or things like solid wood main entry doors may need multiple 14mm mortises cut into each joint for adequate strength and stability.

The Domino belongs in a solid wood door, stair, fine furniture or other production environment working with solid wood which requires lots of M&T joints.

Again:
Making a M&T guitar neck joint with a Domino is not a good idea.