Scarf Joint

[Spivonious]

Here's a question for the luthiers on the board:

Why are most guitars put together with a scarf joint between the headstock and neck? Wouldn't it be better to just use one piece of wood for everything?

[nhspike]

more expensive though...
a scarf lets you use a smaller hunk of wood, with less waste.
with the tilt-back headstock design, just picture how large the blank would have to be.
it's the "green" way to build a guitar.
LOL

[dg]

On a tiltback headstock, a scarf joint is stronger than a 1-piece neck. There used to be a great picture, but I can't find it. Try to picture the grain of the wood in the area from the nut to the end of the headstock. On a 1 piece neck with tilt headstock, there is exposed end-grain all along that angle. A blow to the headstock can easily shear the wood, or actually peel it apart along the grain. A scarf joint eliminates the problem of the end-grain in that area.

edit- Here's a quick & crappy effort to draw it. I suck at paint. I drew the grain in red, but it came out looking weird when I saved it. Still kinda shows what I meant about the grain, though.

[DonP]

Gibson makes necks with 1 piece (they used 3 pieces in the 70's and up to '82).

The ESP neck thru I have has a 3 piece neck. I'd prefer this over the scarf, but my SL2H plays and sounds fine, so who cares I guess.

[Jack The Riffer]

Gibson makes necks with 1 piece (they used 3 pieces in the 70's and up to '82).

The ESP neck thru I have has a 3 piece neck. I'd prefer this over the scarf, but my SL2H plays and sounds fine, so who cares I guess.

I was under the impression that the 3 piece neck consisted of the neck itself, scarf jointed headstock and the fretboard.

[metalchurch79]

DG, great job explaining the wood grains in that diagram you made. That makes it easier for some to envision what we were talking about.
I was trying to explain that to my buddy, and I just sent him a link to this thread, and now he understands what i was trying to explain to him.

[Gank]

I was under the impression that the 3 piece neck consisted of the neck itself, scarf jointed headstock and the fretboard.

A three piece neck is three pieces sandwiched together and the neck is carved from the resulting block of wood. Mat's Shamray V (link) build pics had a great photo of this:

[metalchurch79]

Awesome photo Gank!! It's cool to see the building process of guitars.
some of my fav photo's in the Jackson catalogs are the ones of Shannon and Co. caught in the act of building and painting the guitars.

[Spivonious]

That makes total sense. I hadn't thought of the tilted headstock exposing the grain like that. That would break pretty easily.

[toejam]

A three piece neck is three pieces sandwiched together and the neck is carved from the resulting block of wood. Mat's Shamray V (link) build pics had a great photo of this:

Hamer's been doing the three-piece neck for years, and the piece in the middle has the grain going the opposite way for better stability.

[shreddermon]

Jackson has been doing multi-piece necks forever. They're not standard on the USA line, though - they've been doing one piece necks with a scarf joint since the early/mid-80s. As explained above, it's an issue of both design (neck/headstock strength) and production costs.

You can still get 3, 5 and even 7-piece necks on custom orders. I've seen quite a few done over the past few years, and I spec'd my custom Kelly with a 3-piece.

The SL2H-MAH and KV2T models have 3 piece necks, too. Oddly, these come with a scarf joint, too, though. On these all-mahogany USA production models, I suspect the choice of using a scarf joint has more to do with keeping production costs reasonable.

[toejam]

Actually, now that I think about it, my Mark Morton model (Japanese) also has a three-piece mahogany neck with a scarf joint.

[DonP]

I've heard the KBR has a three piece neck, but I'm not sure if it has a scarf as well.

[GWARGHOUL]

Doesn't a scarf joint enable headstock repairs to be possible a lot easier?

[metalchurch79]

Doesn't a scarf joint enable headstock repairs to be possible a lot easier?

I would agree that they would, but it would really depend on where it's broken. Remember that the fretboard is also glued to the neck also, I'd say as long as the board is not cracked, you could probably just make a new headstock and glue it back into the original scarf joint, finish it off and it would look nice.