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Guitar Neck Designs |
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Above is my first attempt at designing the deep set neck tenon. Currently we have improved on it tremendously. We now add 6 dowels (3 per side) to get even better sustain & wood to wood contact. I cannot show the picture because it's a trade secret. If a competitor wants to find out how we do it they will have to cut one apart to find out. Notice the dual graphite rods in the neck on each side of the truss rod cavity. A deep set neck tenon is an extremely stable way to build a guitar. It also helps the tone and sustain characteristics. Currently, we are carrying several brands of guitars that are built this way: Centurion, & now Quicksilver's are available in a deep set neck tenon. How Guitars Are Usually Built. Most archtop style guitars are built by taking a rectangular piece of Mahogany and laminating or "gluing" a rectangular piece of Maple to the top. Then the basic shape is cut out on a bandsaw and carved from that. Of course Mahogany and Maple are the common woods used, but guitar builders aren't necessarily limited to those two woods. I am just using them as an example for the sake of simplifying this explanation. For example, Gibson, Paul Reed Smith, and even my own Quicksilver guitars are constructed from rectangular laminated billets of wood. The Quicksilver's are now available with Deep Set Neck Tenon, They sound totally different from an original Quicksilver. We are also building them with a set neck and a neck thru body. We have to use completely different pickups with the set neck to get the guitar to sound as good.Very Few Guitars Are Constructed Differently. The Centurion Guitars are all designed using a deep mortise and extra long neck tenon design. This would totally eliminate dead spots on a neck and give the guitar a tremendous amount of stability. This type of construction would also serve to add volume, tone, and incredible sustain. Centurion also makes a fitted archtop that gives them the ability to install the neck at the correct angle underneath it.
3/4 Deep-Set Neck Tenon This idea in itself was not completely original. Other builders, such as, Grover Jackson, BC Rich, Alembic, myself, and even Gibson, with the Firebird, had built guitars with a neck-through body design. When Les Paul originally designed the SG, he had intended it to be a neck-through body. Of course, Gibson did not produce them that way. Gibson opted for the much less expensive set-neck style like the Les Paul or a PRS Custom. Les Paul & Gibson parted ways for most of the 60's because of Norlin's redesign of the SG neck (to this day the SG neck is considered to be one of the most unstable on the market. The first SG's 1961 actually were called Les Paul's however Les Paul wanted no part of that neck design and left Gibson. Over the years, I have learned a lot of things from some of the industry's best and most innovative builders. People like Bernie Rico, Paul Reed Smith, Dean Zelinsky, Grover Jackson, and Joel Dantzig of Hamer, have proven themselves to be worthy mentors. For example, in my conversations with Joel Dantzig, I gained valuable insight regarding the construction of guitars. I questioned Joel about the reasons why Hamer never did a neck-through body. His answer was, "He didn't want to break the soundboard, tone-board, or the top of the guitar." The normal construction method for a neck-through body involves using a neck slightly longer than the one in the picture with glued-on "sides" or "wings" on each side. This method of construction does not lend itself well to an archtop because the main soundboard or "top" of the guitar is broken in half and separated by the neck itself. How can this be prevented? Randy Curlee surmised the ultimate construction technique would be to have a neck-through body with a one piece top. Very few manufacturers offer this construction technique today. It comes on the Centurion and the Gledura guitars. We have done a few Quicksilvers that way but the Quicksilver is designed to be a cost effective guitar and come in for less money than a PRS. Insurmountable Construction Problem
A. It simply can't be done using any normal or even computerized woodworking tools. This of course means that PRS, Gibson, Ibanez, Jackson, BC Rich, Hamer, Fender, G&L, or any of the other mainstream companies will never do it. (It's way too expensive.) To accomplish this feat you have to make a separate body and a separate top. (Twice as much work.) Then you have even more work to attach the two. First the pre-made body with a 12" mortise is attached to the vacuum table. Then the pre-made neck with the 12" tenon is fitted directly into the body. When that is all glued up, you then attach the pre-carved archtop directly to the guitar. Abstract uses only quartersawn Maple, Korina, Mahogany or Premium Sapele for neck wood. Slab cutting (cutting the tree up into pancake style pieces) works well for tops, backs, and veneers; but, it simply isn't straight grained, strong or stable enough for a neck. If you ever see a guitar with quilted neck avoid it like the plague. No matter how pretty the wood is, I guarantee there will be huge problems with the neck. IMPORTANT NECK INFO
It doesn't take a college degree to see which neck design is the best. The Fender is a bolt-on neck. It attaches to a large flange that sticks out from the body. It was designed half a century ago and it is the hardest one to reach the top frets in the picture. The Gibson Les Paul neck is not pictured here because I simply didn't have a loose one to photograph. (What you need to know...) The Gibson Les Paul neck is by far the shortest and stubbiest of all of them. It butts up against the guitar at only the 16th fret. The remaining 6 frets lay on top of the body. I personally hate that design. Look at a Les Paul from a side view. You will immediately notice how incredibly short the neck is. This neck was also designed 50 years ago. It's even harder than the Fender to reach the high frets. Guitars are available in a set-neck, bolt-in neck, and even deep-set neck tenon. The Quicksilver & PRS necks are both designed in a similar fashion. The Quicksilver neck is improved because it employs a hard mount pickup cavity right in the neck; whereas, the PRS pickup only floats on springs above it. PRS necks and Quicksilver necks are both 25" scale and they are completely interchangeable.
You Can Buy An Ed Roman Neck Click Here
Notice the 5 piece super stable neck, you
can see it extending through the tremolo cavity.
Quicksilver Neck Joint (middle) PRS Neck Joint (on each side) It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see which one is the better one! You Can Buy An Ed Roman Neck Click Here
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Q. How can you
get the 3/4 deep neck tenon set into an archtop style body?
