"Slightly mortised butt heel"

[ken cierp]

Dan I believe you have a winner. Interestingly, Taylor grafts on the head-stock, but you grafted on the the FB extension end of the neck. Once again more then one means to an end. BTW as far as I know Taylor glues on a large heel block -- all in an effort to conserve wood.

[Dave Bagwill]

I see - Dan that is a well thought out plan; I may borrow it, which really means steal it, from you. :-)

[Dan Pennington]

Dave, I borrowed/stole from someone else. So, it's all yours. Maybe you will make a little improvement and I can borrow that for my next guitar. I'm going to build a couple of Weissenborns. So you have time to come up with something new that I can steal.
Dan

[Dave Bagwill]

How about this?

[ken cierp]

Vega's (many thousands made) and the original Taylor's had a simple butt joint no mortise -- with the heel perimeter relief shaved as shown above. Vega's used dowels for attachment -- which will be my Ukulele neck joint design.

[Dave Bagwill]

I was hoping that the mortise would make for easier neck angle adjustments down the road?

[ken cierp]

No reason you can't add the mortise feature -- but nine times out of ten a re-set will involve shaving material off "the lower" portion of the heel so the neck angle is increased -- HS tipped away from the sound board. There is some major complexity involve getting the heel profile to match perfectly in the mortise. Lots to consider. Economy of effort.