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I just cut my first V-joint headstock and really have no clue how to clamp it without creating something that appears to be a Rube Goldberg machine.

Anyone have any secrets?

Ronn, this link will take you to a discussion where Joshua French shows his v neck joint. Hope it helps.

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Don Atwood
Arlington, VA

Thnx that helps a lot

There are other good views of how to do a V-Joint. Most of the Modern Classical builders that use V-Joints can be traced back to Jose Romanillos who has been the biggest proponent of the V-Joint.

In 1981 Jose Romanillos demonstrated that method of head attachment at the Guitar '81 Festival in Toronto. In the audience were Gila Eban, Jeffrey Elliot, Cyndy Burton and Duane Waterman who at that point began telling others about the V-Joint.

Long before GAL was publishing "Red books", Duane Waterman wrote about the Romanillos V-Joint in GAL Data Sheet #183, 1981. It has very good drawings including showing how to clamp the joint together. The workshop was later written about in American Lutherie #21, 1990. Both of these are in GAL's Red Book Volume 2.

In American Lutherie #63, Fall 2000 Cyndy Burton did an article in which Geza Burghardt demonstrated with excellent pictures how to cut a foolproof V-Joint.

Joshua and I both use V-joints as does Greg Byers, Kevin Aram, Robert Ruck and a number of others. Jose Romanillos has for several years taught a classical guitar building workshop in which students are encouraged (not mandatory) to build using the V-Joint.

There are some builders that do a covered or stopped V- Joint which is German/Austrian in origin. David Schramm and Hermann Hauser III are among theproponents of that style V-Joint but no other luthier has influenced luthiers to use the V-Joint than Jose Romanillos.

Thnx Shawn.

I'm gonna have to look at those articles. I'm having a heck of a time. I get it really close but it's just not perfect. From what I've seen, it needs to be perfect.

Yes...the article that Dwayne Waterman wrote way back then has the best looking picture of a way to clamp it. He cut a block that has the opposite corresponding angle to the angle of the head so that you first clamp that block to the neck and a clamp straight from the end of the head to the angled back of the block he cut.



I dont have a way to scan the drawing of the clamp setup but here is a REALLY crude drawing to illustrate the clamp block he used