Bird's beak headstock

[ken cierp]

I believe the BB joint is an appearance or historic feature as opposed to a structural concern. A scarf joint is actually an improvement over a single piece head stock configuration because the grain orientation is more straight line. I am sure the wedging effect introduced with the bird's beak construction is very stable and more robust as well. But lets not loose sight of the fact that millions of solid neck guitars have survived without incident for decades or longer!

[robert mitchell]

i looked at the birds beak link and liked the looks of the joint, have since built the jigs and made a few joints just for practice, they turned out descent and appears-to be sturdy and functional. now to be honest made four joints before i got the sequence right, which is essential for the joint to turn out correctly.it is do able for a less than bright old-man..

[Dave Bagwill]

Robert - any directions for the jigs. I'm a not very smart old guy, so maybe I can learn to do this headstock, which I happen to like. That one box jig looked tricky though? Do you have any pictures and/or measurements etc that you'd be willing to share?

[robert mitchell]

the 8 degree box jig is pretty simple my headstock plate is 3 inches wide,my two clamp pieces are 1/2" thick 21/2" tall and six " long. the box is 4" wide X8" long and 3" deep,at the front of the box there is two 1" tall X 3" long pieces cut on an 8 degree angle 1" tall on the long side, torn the the two long edges together and place them at front of the box.This gives you an 8 degree slope in the box to hold your headplate, the rear support of the box is positioned to where the plate will slide underneath, this is to hold the plate down and the block of wood at the back keeps the plate from sliding backwards and the two thumbscrews holds the plate centered in the box,the other jig for the bandsaw can be made in the same fashion with an 8"long piece of wood with a 1" strip on one end the result is an 8 degree platform.Be careful when making the cuts,be aware that the volute ends up wider on the front, when laying out your volute on the rear that a 25mm wide volute turns out to be 30 mm on the front. I have been cutting the neck first,then routing the headplate at this point the headplate is not at final thickness,i measure at the end of the beak and sand the headplate to final thickness until it fits tightly.I sand from the unrouted side of the plate.The routed side goes up.I have not learned to do photos yet. I hope this helps some.

[Dave Bagwill]

That does help, thanks a lot!

[ken cierp]

Send the pixs to me I'll post them for you this time only, I am sure members would like to see this process. Some of you guys are great image posters perhaps you can give Robert some tips?