Why are 3 piece necks superior?

[Grandturk]

Re: Why are 3 piece necks superior?

[ QUOTE ]
yeah i suspected gibson lp necks were one-piece because they all snap at the headstock (: (:

wasn't sure because all the lp's i've played on had solid-painted necks.

[/ QUOTE ]

The vast majority are one piece mahogony, except for the early 70's which were 3 piece mahogony and the mid 70's to early 80's which were 3 piece maple.

The reason necks snap at the headstock has less to do with the wood, and more to do with the grain at the point the angle changes. A non-tilt mahagony neck would have the same structural integrity as a maple neck. When you cut the wood to tilt back the head, you are cutting through the grain, leaving "open grain" at a major stress point. This is why Jacksons use scarf joints - no open grain.

[Jim Shine]

Re: Why are 3 piece necks superior?

Scarf joints are also often used by many companies out of economy. A scarf jointed neck uses less wood as it is a much thinner piece of wood than a one piece or even 3 piece with no scarf joint requires to make the angled headstock.

[delt]

Re: Why are 3 piece necks superior?

yeah, it,s a waste of wood to make the whole neck in 1 piece .... unless you somehow make 2 of them out of the same piece of wood, like this:

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[etaeniura]

Re: Why are 3 piece necks superior?

Grandturk-you explained what I meant in a more thorough fasion. If a normal Gibson neck was made from, say, 3 pieces of mahogany sandwiched together, the grain of at least one of those pieces wouldn't be weakest at that point. I'm guessing this is the reason so many high-end basses have the 3 or 5 piece laminated necks-because of the extraordinary amount of stress from 4, 5, or even 6 heavy strings on them. I also believe that is the reason acoustic guitars sometimes have that little diamond shaped thing on the back of the neck where it meets the headstock (I forget what it's called) to brace the weakest part of the wood.

[Number Of The Priest]

Re: Why are 3 piece necks superior?

[ QUOTE ]
I also believe that is the reason acoustic guitars sometimes have that little diamond shaped thing on the back of the neck where it meets the headstock (I forget what it's called) to brace the weakest part of the wood.

[/ QUOTE ]

Is it called a "volute"?

[Accept2]

Re: Why are 3 piece necks superior?

I think you can also make laminated necks thinner than one piece necks due to their reluctance to warp. All the one piece necks I have are quite thick. The worst is a one piece neck with no fretboard. I love maple fretboards, but I have one guitar which instead of placing a maple fretboard on a maple neck, the frets are layed right into the neck. Its something that looks real cool, and I guess it takes a pretty good luthier to do this, but the guitar doesnt have the same feel as a seperate fretboard guitar......

[texasfury]

.

[toejam]

You dug back 3 years to resurrect this thread for that gem of a question? Good job. LOL

[Bengal]

Dude must be really, really bored...

(Like me...)

[nor]

If glue is stronger than wood, why not just make guitars out of glue then?

'Cause glue sounds like ass.

[DonP]

If glue is stronger than wood, why not just make guitars out of glue then?

[VitaminG]

'Cause glue sounds like ass.

I like ass

[The Mitch]

Me too! And titties! :ROTF:

Thanks to texasfury, good thread to reactivate

[zeegler]

As long as it doesn't smell like ass.

[straycat]

If it smells like cologne leave it alone!