People will be studying these videos for generations to come. Imagine a time-traveling film crew in the studio of Antonio Stradivari, revealing all his secrets? Yeah, that’s what this series is the equivalent to. What an absolute treasure.
I've been on a binge with your videos for the past couple weeks now. All I can say is Thank you for the knowledge, generosity , and passion you are sharing. Amazing!!
Four A.M. and I’m excited to see what the secret neck is made of. Mold and wood dimensions critical, but everything makes sense to a boat builder. Wow! And the saga continues, thanks Ken😊
I really do hope, that the methods you are sharing, explanations you make, will inspire more makers to change the way guitars are made. Traditional guitar methods, developed in line with availability of materials and knowledge existed at the time of their origin, are in many areas not optimal and not in line with current knowledge and materials’ availability. Not utilizing the current knowledge and current materials in service of “tradition” makes guitar making industry/craft strange. You have once asked a great question: “Would you still use a wooden tennis racket, wooden skis or leather skiing boots?”. You are THE person, who can and is changing it. Thank goodness! You are the treasure! Thank you for being a great inspiration!
Having just watched Bahrain F1 qualifying, the wisdom of your choice of high-performing composite for the neck is not lost on me. My Fly continues to please.
Loved the experiment of the different woods and memory. This why we like science! Also, as a guitar building hobbyist, it warmed my heart seeing that amazing neck manufacturing aluminum machine/jig, with crappy electrical tape wrapping around the wire plugs. Thank you so much for these videos. Can't wait to see what is next.
This is amazing! Your explanation of all the issues that you have sought to engineer out of a stringed instrument is crystal clear to a player like myself with little to no engineering experience, and the process you have developed seems pure genius.
the amount of work in making that jig alone is amazing, thanks so much for sharing the methods, I'm looking forward to the next videos showing the neck being made.
I chose not to get it CNC milled for reasons I can no longer recall. Just stubborn, I guess. You have no idea how much work that was. I milled it the best I could on the Bridgeport, then I moved a Lot of aluminum with a thick, egg shaped scraper, and sanded the marks out with a 25mm X .65m thick wall aluminum tube with 80 grit, 120 grit, 320 grit, and 600 grit paper stuck on. Hours, Hours, Hours. Good for the soul, it builds character, I'm told.
This has been the subject of much head scratching in many a late night shop chat over the years. At least 5 shops by my personal count, countless others no doubt. Thank you for sharing this and sparing us more nights of (sometimes hilarious) speculation.
Of course the reveal is that it's all done with mirrors, as you probably know. This is the most hilarious comment ever! Pray tell, what theories have held your interest?
I hope you’ll excuse me borrowing some language from a favorite letter in response: “One person will only go so far out on a limb in his construction of deeply hypothetical structures, and will often end with a shrug or a raising of hands to indicate the dismissability of his particular take on a subject. With two people, the intricacies, the gives and takes, the wherefores and why-nots, can become a veritable pas-de-deux of breathtaking speculation, interwoven in such a way that apologies or gestures of doubt are rendered unnecessary” …I personally always assumed mirrors but they never listened. Thanks for the confirmation. @@kenparkerarchtoppery9440
You're an absolute genius Ken. It's one thing to make beautiful instruments, but also to make the tools to facilitate the instrument making. I'm extremely envious of your many talents.
Interesting stuff. However, when comparing between species the loading produced by your fixed displacement test will depend upon the bending modulus of that species. Thus the wood with greater bending modulus has greater load. Since strings produce about equal load on the neck regardless of species, not equal displacement, the set may not be the same as this test suggests. When I did creep testing on composite bars of various compositions I made sure the load was equal. However this is a very good illustration of your point. And the composite reenforced neck you have developed is genius!
Thanks! I was not trying for a science prize so much as hoping to show that different species have different creep resistance is all. I appreciate your concern about equal load, but strings apply a wide range of constant loads on guitars that are in use, and creep is the most common failure mode for necks. Since fingerboard geometry is so critical to maintain, creep - caused distortion is the main enemy of a player's chances of getting through a career without serious repetitive use injury. In other words, this is just a setup to my conclusion that wood neck materials alone won't be very likely enough to insure permanent fingerboard geometry over time, and that the addition of low, almost no- creep carbon/epoxy reinforcement is a permanent solution to the creep issue.
Such a interesting process! Impressive, that the form is still as clean looking after such a long time dealing with soaked carbon for almost two decades. I'd appreciate it a lot if you share the weight (g/m2 or what ever you use in the US ;) ) of your uni-directional carbon tubing (just as a reference). Thanks for sharing your process in such a detail ❤
I use a mold release on the metal parts, and try to keep up with cleaning. It's still kind of a pain in the neck, and I'm always looking for ways to reduce the mess and cleaning time. Teflon tape can be a big help if you can keep it stuck on. I'll weigh out the carbon and try to relate how many fibers are there when we get to the actual layup itself, stay tuned!
Wow, what a great neck design, thanks! I just do some repairs on my own guitars, but I have the idea that when the resonant frequency of the neck harmonizes with the frequency of the body those guitars sound good "sing". I took a few strats and tapped on the necks and bodies listening for the note. Then I matched the necks and bodies that harmonized the best, and the guitars sound better than they did when the frequencies did not harmonize. I just thought I'd mention this. Thanks!
This was so inspiring, Ken! I have been curious about your neck making proces for years, so this is very exciting😊. I am wondering how you would make a Nitefly-like neck joint these days, after the last 18 years of learning and reinventing the neck proces. In my own prototyping, I have used combined bolt-in/bolt-on solutions, as well as a sideways joint. Keep up the brilliant work.
Ok, so the neck has quite a big heel. A single bolt goes sideways through the heel into a threaded insert in the upper bout. On the backside of the body it has 10 mm wenge/carbon fiber strip - it's the length of the body and the width of the neck heel. This is bolted to the body and the neck heel. This construction makes it possible to slightly adjust the neck angle (with shims) and backmounted pickups for that cleaner look.
Really looking forward to watching the composite process unfold. I've worked with carbon making cycling shoes and it can be quite difficult to deal with issues like voids and finish imperfections. The compaction you achieve in the little square peg looks excellent. I had the though initially 'how the fudge do you make that in one piece so cleanly?'. Great stuff.
Cool, yeah, composites may look easy, but as you mention, tthere’s lots of ways for itt to go sideways, and all kinds of unique pitfalls to be avoided. 35 years ago I aggressively rode clip-ons, maybe I missed my calling?
There is more fun coming with new baked wood materials. Still not sure how much wood changes after this treatment. Also I am surprised that Douglas Fir is not widely used in mass production of musical instruments. Or I didn't hear anything about it...
To be sure, we don't know close to everything there is to know about baked, or torrefied wood, and, as usual, it's possible to "go too far" with this treatment, and reduce the qualities you'd like to improve. My friend Dana Bourgeois has been fooling around with it for 10 years, and here on his site does a great job of explaining how it all works. Please read his whole text, he carefully explains the complexity and addresses the limits and pitfalls of heat treating wood to improve mechanical properties. Thanks to Dana for his clarity and transparency on this subject! Speaking of transparency, I have been led to believe that unlike untreated spruce, torrefied spruce is opaque. While flat top guitar makers are unlikely to be bothered by this surprising change in opacity, this would be disconcerting to some of us archtop builders, who sometimes use a light source behind a plate to help quickly asses the evenness of the plate's thickness while it is being thinned to adjust its stiffness. No surprise, it's tricky to get this heat treatment just right, while, at best, the benefits are considered to be modest, I am led to believe. This does not mean that torrefication isn't helpful, only that it's a complex subject that needs to be explored carefully. There are no secret weapons in instrument building, though it's easy to understand why folks wish there were! As usual, the more you learn, the less likely you'll be taken in by "miracle reports". bourgeoisguitars.com/from-danas-bench-how-torrefied-woods-benefit-bourgeois-guitars/ As far as Douglas Fir is concerned, some woodworkers find the work-ability of some types, (remember, there are a number of species) to be challenging, and I can agree. Some material is very homogeneous and docile, presenting no unusual difficulties in working with hand tools or power tools. However, some dramatic looking, fast growing DF timber showing thick and hard lines of late growth interspersed with (usually) thicker bands of soft early wood can be problematic whether being tooled by hand or machine. The hard and soft layers of these two very different kinds of tissue can make precision cutting very challenging.
Brilliant, and I can't imagine a stiffer structure that could mount to a hollow body. But, here's a thought; is there no curve in this neck to accommodate the vibration of the string? We've (I've) understood there to be a curve in that vibration and that neck relief is curved to match. Is that a problem or is it my imagination?
The precise shape of the fret tops/fingerboard surface is a demanding thing to achieve, and requires a subtle relief curve in the first octave, as you suggest, no way around it.
Try it out for yourself, I don’t think you’ll find out anything earth-shattering. This demo was just to show that wood cannot be counted on to perfectly recover from being bent, leading to the search for a work-around in neck construction.
Thank you for sharing this. I have a better understanting of what happened to all my bolt on neck. I will continue to shave down the fret or fingerboard at the end of the neck to fight the creep. Have you consider a full aluminium neck with the venner+linen glue on the back and ebony veneer for fingerboard? It would be stiff no? Aluminium is not cheap but it would trim down the process IMHO. No resin to heat or cure.
I think of aluminum as pretty cheap, but machining costs are substantial, plus it's 6-8 times heavier than any material I would consider for a neck core, such as Douglas fir or basswood. It's a pretty light metal, but no metal is light compared to nice, stiff softwoods. Several guitars have been designed and built with aluminum as either a component of or the whole of the neck, including Wilkanowski, Ovation, Travis Bean, Kramer, etc. None have performed admirably, in my opinion, and they have some odd problems, such as a great thermal co-efficient which will suck the heat out of your hands! I once had a customer try to play a Travis Bean outside on a cold night in Central Park, and his hand was so cold as to have been disabled by cramping.
If you look closely on photos of my guitars from the back, you can see that I moved the cutaway shape towards the centerline for better access, The 1/4” offset I built into the neck tool helps me to do this nicely. It also insures that the neck won’t be wanting to wiggle in the socket, as the string’s force will twist the pin in the socket, and make it secure. Make sense?
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 never thought about that twist! brilliant move imho, i wonder how did you adress the friction in the action-adjustment system? (i love it and i want to see in solidbody guitars someday😭)
Friction here is quite modest. I use some light grease on the screw threads, and paraffin wax on the neck pin. It’s not an issue, everything glides nicely.
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 That makes perfect sense. Thank you. These videos and your responses in the comments are absolute gold. It's absolutely fascinating watching a true master and easily the most innovative designer/builder of guitars take us through your thought process and techniques.
Another brilliant video, thank you for sharing your time and knowledge, Ken. I've made a few guitars, some acoustic but mostly electric, all with traditional materials and traditional neck joints, either set or bolt-on. I've epoxied carbon fibre rods in necks but that's about as adventurous as I've got so far. I think this neck construction and the whole neck/body joint is brilliant. IMHO the best solution I've ever seen. I don't have the skills, knowledge, or tool making skills to be able to replicate something even close to this, much as I would love to try! But, it might be feasible for me to try building an electric bolt-on neck, applying the same type of construction and material principals because I think some of the benefits apply equally to that type of guitar. Would that be OK if I tried? Is this construction and method protected in some way? (is this a dumb question?!). Would I be infringing on any patent, trademark or whatever if I attempt something inspired by this, because I wouldn't want to do that. Basically... Please Mr Parker, can I get your blessing to try something like this? I promise I'm neither a threat to you commercially, or anywhere near your level of skill! Thanks again. I can't tell you how much these videos have inspired me and I'm really looking forward to the live neck build.
I can't imagine any reason that aging would do this, but it would be a difficult thing to test properly. Wood creeps, some species more than others, but just think of it as a sagging roof-line, it's hard imagine that anything could stop it from sagging over time.
I own a widebelt thickness sander which is my go-to for this kind of job, but if you don't have one, you can resaw to thickness plus a small amount extra, then work it down with hand tools, we've all been there.
I wonder if you've observed any correlation between a species ability to be heat bent and tendency to cold creep? The US Forest Products Lab has a publication "Machining and Related Characteristics of United States Hardwoods" by E. M. Davis, 1962, Technical Bulletin No. 1267 (hard to find, by the way), which lists for 25 North American species the percent of pieces they were able to steam bend. One luthier/engineer, Trevor Gore, says in his book "Contemporary Acoustic Guitar" that he believes there is a correlation between ability to be heat bent and cold creep, and he avoid species that heat bend for use in necks. Have you seen this correlation in your work?
Agree. This is a big component of what we’re studying here. If I come right out and say that maple is an unfortunate choice for neck material, I might need a bodyguard. Apart from Fender guitars and “Traditional Archtops”, guitar necks are rarely made from maple. Although maple can be attractive and durable, it’s a dunce in the memory department, and not especially stable either. There are ways to prepare for and anticipate the unavoidable effects of creep using a wood such as maple, but it’s extra work, and an inexact science. I’m trying to show my solution for eliminating creep in the neck. I believe my system does this perfectly, while adding significant benefits, such as making it fairly simple to include a perfectly dependable, adjustable neck joint with superior energy transmission.
Of course we all ask this, right? The problem is with the lever lengths. Think of the guitar as a balance beam with the fulcrum at the waist. Necks are long, and the distance from the waist to the tail is not, so you'll need a big weight to move the scale much, and many of us would think this is an ugly move. There seems to be some thinking that I try to make everything as light as can be, and while that may seem to be the case, I'm just trying to make the instrument sensitive so it's more fun to play, and adding mass seems to work against both of these goals, at least to me.
Pretty good show! Yeah,,,,Just a little tiny bit of complexity. Wood bend experiment makes no connection to the strength change affected by the treatment of these materials prior. Which is very important. How "old" would be one! The experiment exceeds the strength element of the fibers, when does one find a neck bent like that for that long ? Especially if the material is green/fresh. Could we. Maybe see one of your necks forced/bent to a little beyond it's limit for 5 weeks and see if it straightens out = bragging rights/kudos. lol. You might have done this already. That would be an interesting show and tell! maybe. I wonder if that was the reason for truss rod application/invention??
The adjustable truss rod is utterly unable to address the problem of creep deformation at the end of the neck, and can only adjust the amount of relief in the first octave. That is why we're exploring the effects of creep, and looking for ways to succeed in spite of it.
Nice test, but what i see as not so usefull in here, for a transfere to necks behavior: you bent the wood and measured the creep, after release. So far so clear. But - if i keep a neck almost straight all the time with the truss rod, it´s living under different conditions, than your wood stripes, no matter how long the neck is under pressure from the string tension. Could it not be possible with all your Fender neck repair for example, that they often didn´t dry the fretboards wood long enough? so the fretboard shrunk more, than the maple of the necks? This could give an expression of maple is creeping, while the true reason is the shrunk of the fretboards.. ?
I was trying to demonstrate that creep is a real thing, and I realize my demo looked to some of you like a sloppy scientific experiment, which I apologize for. The primary cause of the ugly "hinge" behavior enabled by creep in maple and other neck materials at the most highly stressed part of the neck seems pretty straightforward to me, having examined thousands of necks as a repair jock. If your neck is OK, that's great, but most necks are not in the condition they left the factory in, and I was hoping to relate my analysis of the primary reason for this, which I'll stand behind. I'll allow that drying can be poorly controlled, especially in days gone by when the "Golden Age" of 20th mid-century guitarmaking was in process. In my understanding, this is a different kind of problem, and not especially related to the permanent deformation I'm describing, that is the elongation of fibers on the back of the neck AKA creep that causes such a big problem in many instruments.
hey, I worry a bit about neck dive. Because the body of the guitar will be very light and the neck rather heavy in comparison. What would your suggestion be? probably I gotta be really mindful with the strap button placement. I don't really wanna put weights inside the body or anything though.
Yup, You, and all the rest of us had better be worried about heavy necks. Balance due to neck and tuning machine weight has often been an issue with fretted instruments. The only example that comes to mind without it is the flamenco guitar with violin-style wooden friction tuning pegs. My remedies include a minimum size head, super-light tuning machines, and no metal truss rod. Of course there are other ways to tweak the weight lower, there always are, but I’m happy with the balance of my instruments, and have never had a complaint. Corrective weight installed inside the instrument is, I agree, Out of the question. This is an issue that cannot always be solved in fretted instruments. Lutes were the dominant fretted instruments all across Europe for centuries, and they are very challenging to hold and play. They suffer from not only this issue, but, being bowl-backed, they are difficult to perch on your thigh. Try one and see!
Ok! So I got non locking gotoh tuners. I thought they were probably a good midground but I have no idea if 36grams for each head is ok. Do you have any idea how much your tuners weigh? I don't really want to alter the tuners by swapping metal parts, for looks, so I'm now thinking about whether I might be better off using these for a future electric build or something or whether it's gonna be probably ok@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440
I think your neck design is probably as good as it gets for wood based guitars(as opposed to metal or full composite). A frustration I have with the more common forms of neck reinforcement, is that everyone puts it almost right through the neutral axis. I realize that it's not a trivial task to NOT do that, but it's still sad to see all that potential stiffness wasted.
Right you are on all counts. For an excellent solution, check out the Allred "D" Tube, inspired by my use of carbon in the neck. dragonplate.com/carbon-fiber-d-tube
Good question, and although I can't claim to have any experience with this, I would think that heat treating maple will not exonerate its bad behavior in the creep department. That is, I would be very surprised if it turned out to be measurably helpful. Creep in maple is extra challenging for reasons that only maple knows, but all wood is subject to creep, as I was hoping to demonstrate. Our best move is to understand how much any given piece of wood might be expected to creep, and either anticipate it, or externally support it in some way, or both. Here I've copied my response to another viewer's question about torrefied material.... To be sure, we don't know close to everything there is to know about baked, or torrefied wood, and, as usual, it's possible to "go too far" with this treatment, and reduce the qualities you'd like to improve. My friend Dana Bourgeois has been fooling around with it for 10 years, and here on his site does a great job of explaining how it all works. Please read his whole text, he carefully explains the complexity and addresses the limits and pitfalls of heat treating wood to improve mechanical properties. Thanks to Dana for his clarity and transparency on this subject! Speaking of transparency, I have been led to believe that unlike untreated spruce, torrefied spruce is opaque. While flat top guitar makers are unlikely to be bothered by this surprising change in opacity, this would be disconcerting to some of us archtop builders, who sometimes use a light source behind a plate to help quickly asses the evenness of the plate's thickness while it is being thinned to adjust its stiffness. No surprise, it's tricky to get this heat treatment just right, while, at best, the benefits are considered to be modest, I am led to believe. This does not mean that torrefication isn't helpful, only that it's a complex subject that needs to be explored carefully. There are no secret weapons in instrument building, though it's easy to understand why folks wish there were! As usual, the more you learn, the less likely you'll be taken in by "miracle reports". bourgeoisguitars.com/from-danas-bench-how-torrefied-woods-benefit-bourgeois-guitars/
Years ago, I acquired a maple neck blank that had an outline of one of your Fly guitar's neck shape drawn on it in blue marker. It was a little over-sized around that outline and was over an inch thick. Could that have been yours at one time, or did someone else attempt an imitation?
By removing frets and re-surfacing the fingerboard by removing material. Not a job for a beginner. I'll plan to do a video on how this works. It's doable.
Have at it! Allow me to point out that, at least in my opinion, the neck joint we're talking about was devised and is a part of my superior acoustic guitar design, so I can only assume you mean a "flat-top guitar" when you say acoustic. Apologies accepted. Easy mistake to make, but let's keep our minds open and include the light, sensitive archtop in the field of acoustic guitars, and perhaps at the top of it. Send Photos!
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 I find your guitars wonderful especially played by Michael Chapdelaine. Yes ,of course I was talking about Flat top guitars , I’m even considering to try your finish method in place of french polish because I like the satin look .Thank you for sharing your immense knowledge .
Although this species is very commonly used in classical guitar construction, this isn’t my end of the pool, and I have never worked with Spanish cedar as a builder. This material has a lot of nice attributes; it’s quite light for its stiffness, and quite stable. If I were to use it in my work, I would use it as a neck core material. I do have some lovely vertical grain material in stock and maybe I should give it a try, thanks for the suggestion!
this is really a fantastic gift to the world, though. you believe in your innovations, and you want them perpetuated on into the future, money be damned. deepest respect, and thank you.
It certainly is more elastic! There are all kinds of reasons builders choose one material over another, sound, appearance, tradition, cost, ease of working, ease of finishing, durability, resistance to cracking or deformation, weight, etc,etc. Jimmy D’Aquisto used maple for the bodies of everything he ever built, including a bunch of flat top guitars, if I’m not mistaken, He thought mahogany and rosewood were only good for furniture. Go figure! It’s the builder’s call. Also, there are lots of great reasons to use mahogany for bodies, as I continue to do in my own work. I think it checks all the boxes of these attributes I just listed.
I’ve said it before. But these videos are unbelievably generous. Thank you.
So nice of you
They certainly are.
second the motion
People will be studying these videos for generations to come. Imagine a time-traveling film crew in the studio of Antonio Stradivari, revealing all his secrets? Yeah, that’s what this series is the equivalent to.
What an absolute treasure.
Aw shucks.
I've been on a binge with your videos for the past couple weeks now. All I can say is Thank you for the knowledge, generosity , and passion you are sharing. Amazing!!
Awesome, thank you!
Four A.M. and I’m excited to see what the secret neck is made of. Mold and wood dimensions critical, but everything makes sense to a boat builder. Wow! And the saga continues, thanks Ken😊
Boats, Guitars, what more could a guy want?
Can't wait to get out on the harbor, C'mon Spring!
I cannot wait to see this process live! Thank you for bringing us along.
You are so welcome!
I really do hope, that the methods you are sharing, explanations you make, will inspire more makers to change the way guitars are made. Traditional guitar methods, developed in line with availability of materials and knowledge existed at the time of their origin, are in many areas not optimal and not in line with current knowledge and materials’ availability. Not utilizing the current knowledge and current materials in service of “tradition” makes guitar making industry/craft strange. You have once asked a great question: “Would you still use a wooden tennis racket, wooden skis or leather skiing boots?”. You are THE person, who can and is changing it. Thank goodness! You are the treasure! Thank you for being a great inspiration!
Thanks, K!
New ingredients are always welcome!
Having just watched Bahrain F1 qualifying, the wisdom of your choice of high-performing composite for the neck is not lost on me. My Fly continues to please.
Cool! let’s go fast!
Fascinating. Please never stop doing videos! You are like a modern Stradivari.
Strad was a modernist, and one of my life-long heroes. He was good at everything!
Loved the experiment of the different woods and memory. This why we like science! Also, as a guitar building hobbyist, it warmed my heart seeing that amazing neck manufacturing aluminum machine/jig, with crappy electrical tape wrapping around the wire plugs. Thank you so much for these videos. Can't wait to see what is next.
I dare you to find non crappy electrical tape!
This is amazing! Your explanation of all the issues that you have sought to engineer out of a stringed instrument is crystal clear to a player like myself with little to no engineering experience, and the process you have developed seems pure genius.
How nice to hear this. Thanks!
the amount of work in making that jig alone is amazing, thanks so much for sharing the methods, I'm looking forward to the next videos showing the neck being made.
I chose not to get it CNC milled for reasons I can no longer recall. Just stubborn, I guess. You have no idea how much work that was. I milled it the best I could on the Bridgeport, then I moved a Lot of aluminum with a thick, egg shaped scraper, and sanded the marks out with a 25mm X .65m thick wall aluminum tube with 80 grit, 120 grit, 320 grit, and 600 grit paper stuck on. Hours, Hours, Hours. Good for the soul, it builds character, I'm told.
This has been the subject of much head scratching in many a late night shop chat over the years. At least 5 shops by my personal count, countless others no doubt. Thank you for sharing this and sparing us more nights of (sometimes hilarious) speculation.
Of course the reveal is that it's all done with mirrors, as you probably know.
This is the most hilarious comment ever!
Pray tell, what theories have held your interest?
I hope you’ll excuse me borrowing some language from a favorite letter in response: “One person will only go so far out on a limb in his construction of deeply hypothetical structures, and will often end with a shrug or a raising of hands to indicate the dismissability of his particular take on a subject. With two people, the intricacies, the gives and takes, the wherefores and why-nots, can become a veritable pas-de-deux of breathtaking speculation, interwoven in such a way that apologies or gestures of doubt are rendered unnecessary” …I personally always assumed mirrors but they never listened. Thanks for the confirmation. @@kenparkerarchtoppery9440
You're an absolute genius Ken. It's one thing to make beautiful instruments, but also to make the tools to facilitate the instrument making. I'm extremely envious of your many talents.
I'm just too stupid to get a real job.
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 I wish I was that stupid!
"There's a lot going on here"
I agree, and it's awesome ; ) Thanks Ken
Nothing hard is ever easy.
Thank you Mr Parker for sharing your knowledge of creep and how you worked and came up with a solution ....
Most welcome
I am truly grateful that you are sharing this wealth of knowledge with us, and am very much looking forward to seeing it in practice!
My pleasure! It’s all about my favorite pursuit, toolmaking in service of guitarists.
Very interesting process... thanks for sharing how you make these very innovative necks! The "creep test" also very interesting.
Thank you! Cheers!
I hadn't learned this much about guitar making since Somogyi published his books 😊
OK, thanks, but I probably won’t tell Ervin you said that.
Thank you for your generosity. A very cool design!
Our pleasure!
My interest is peaked! I can't wait for more. Thanks again Sir!
More to come!
Thank you for the immense generosity sharing your Knowledge and experience! Someday I will try this scheme in my own design,
🙏
Please do!
Sincerely thank you for your sharing Mr Parker, really thank you. Cedric.
Glad you enjoyed it! I love making these. Big Fun
This is just amazing! Looking forward to the real time assembly.
Coming up!
Interesting stuff. However, when comparing between species the loading produced by your fixed displacement test will depend upon the bending modulus of that species. Thus the wood with greater bending modulus has greater load. Since strings produce about equal load on the neck regardless of species, not equal displacement, the set may not be the same as this test suggests.
When I did creep testing on composite bars of various compositions I made sure the load was equal.
However this is a very good illustration of your point. And the composite reenforced neck you have developed is genius!
Thanks! I was not trying for a science prize so much as hoping to show that different species have different creep resistance is all. I appreciate your concern about equal load, but strings apply a wide range of constant loads on guitars that are in use, and creep is the most common failure mode for necks. Since fingerboard geometry is so critical to maintain, creep - caused distortion is the main enemy of a player's chances of getting through a career without serious repetitive use injury. In other words, this is just a setup to my conclusion that wood neck materials alone won't be very likely enough to insure permanent fingerboard geometry over time, and that the addition of low, almost no- creep carbon/epoxy reinforcement is a permanent solution to the creep issue.
Fascinating, as always. Thanks for sharing!
Glad you enjoyed it!
I wish Ken would make another solidbody electric guitar using his new techniques. He has continued to push the envelope since the Parker Fly days.
Stay tuned, you never know...
Thank you so much for letting us see your absolutely Amazing work!
My pleasure!
I learn so much from your videos Ken. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise.
My pleasure!
Thanks for making these videos. They always get me thinking.
You're welcome. Keep thinking!
Such a interesting process! Impressive, that the form is still as clean looking after such a long time dealing with soaked carbon for almost two decades. I'd appreciate it a lot if you share the weight (g/m2 or what ever you use in the US ;) ) of your uni-directional carbon tubing (just as a reference). Thanks for sharing your process in such a detail ❤
I use a mold release on the metal parts, and try to keep up with cleaning. It's still kind of a pain in the neck, and I'm always looking for ways to reduce the mess and cleaning time. Teflon tape can be a big help if you can keep it stuck on. I'll weigh out the carbon and try to relate how many fibers are there when we get to the actual layup itself, stay tuned!
Wow, what a great neck design, thanks! I just do some repairs on my own guitars, but I have the idea that when the resonant frequency of the neck harmonizes with the frequency of the body those guitars sound good "sing". I took a few strats and tapped on the necks and bodies listening for the note. Then I matched the necks and bodies that harmonized the best, and the guitars sound better than they did when the frequencies did not harmonize. I just thought I'd mention this. Thanks!
Good one! Keep it up.
Thank you for the encouragement. I will not forget it.@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440
Ohhhh, almost forgot.
The linen thing, interesting that Some Steinway piano case veneers had linen glued on the very figured veneers to strengthen it.
Cloth and paper have been employed by instrument builders for ages. It's super helpful for controlling thin veneers.
This was so inspiring, Ken! I have been curious about your neck making proces for years, so this is very exciting😊. I am wondering how you would make a Nitefly-like neck joint these days, after the last 18 years of learning and reinventing the neck proces. In my own prototyping, I have used combined bolt-in/bolt-on solutions, as well as a sideways joint. Keep up the brilliant work.
Sideways joint? do tell!
Ok, so the neck has quite a big heel. A single bolt goes sideways through the heel into a threaded insert in the upper bout. On the backside of the body it has 10 mm wenge/carbon fiber strip - it's the length of the body and the width of the neck heel. This is bolted to the body and the neck heel. This construction makes it possible to slightly adjust the neck angle (with shims) and backmounted pickups for that cleaner look.
Really looking forward to watching the composite process unfold. I've worked with carbon making cycling shoes and it can be quite difficult to deal with issues like voids and finish imperfections. The compaction you achieve in the little square peg looks excellent. I had the though initially 'how the fudge do you make that in one piece so cleanly?'. Great stuff.
Cool, yeah, composites may look easy, but as you mention, tthere’s lots of ways for itt to go sideways, and all kinds of unique pitfalls to be avoided. 35 years ago I aggressively rode clip-ons, maybe I missed my calling?
Oh yes it's a good thing !
Thanks Master.
You are welcome!
thanks again Ken
Thanks for digging it!
There is more fun coming with new baked wood materials. Still not sure how much wood changes after this treatment. Also I am surprised that Douglas Fir is not widely used in mass production of musical instruments. Or I didn't hear anything about it...
To be sure, we don't know close to everything there is to know about baked, or torrefied wood, and, as usual, it's possible to "go too far" with this treatment, and reduce the qualities you'd like to improve.
My friend Dana Bourgeois has been fooling around with it for 10 years, and here on his site does a great job of explaining how it all works. Please read his whole text, he carefully explains the complexity and addresses the limits and pitfalls of heat treating wood to improve mechanical properties. Thanks to Dana for his clarity and transparency on this subject! Speaking of transparency, I have been led to believe that unlike untreated spruce, torrefied spruce is opaque. While flat top guitar makers are unlikely to be bothered by this surprising change in opacity, this would be disconcerting to some of us archtop builders, who sometimes use a light source behind a plate to help quickly asses the evenness of the plate's thickness while it is being thinned to adjust its stiffness.
No surprise, it's tricky to get this heat treatment just right, while, at best, the benefits are considered to be modest, I am led to believe.
This does not mean that torrefication isn't helpful, only that it's a complex subject that needs to be explored carefully.
There are no secret weapons in instrument building, though it's easy to understand why folks wish there were!
As usual, the more you learn, the less likely you'll be taken in by "miracle reports".
bourgeoisguitars.com/from-danas-bench-how-torrefied-woods-benefit-bourgeois-guitars/
As far as Douglas Fir is concerned, some woodworkers find the work-ability of some types, (remember, there are a number of species) to be challenging, and I can agree. Some material is very homogeneous and docile, presenting no unusual difficulties in working with hand tools or power tools. However, some dramatic looking, fast growing DF timber showing thick and hard lines of late growth interspersed with (usually) thicker bands of soft early wood can be problematic whether being tooled by hand or machine. The hard and soft layers of these two very different kinds of tissue can make precision cutting very challenging.
Brilliant, and I can't imagine a stiffer structure that could mount to a hollow body. But, here's a thought; is there no curve in this neck to accommodate the vibration of the string? We've (I've) understood there to be a curve in that vibration and that neck relief is curved to match. Is that a problem or is it my imagination?
The precise shape of the fret tops/fingerboard surface is a demanding thing to achieve, and requires a subtle relief curve in the first octave, as you suggest, no way around it.
I’d like to see those pieces re-evaluated after another 5 days of not being under that load.
Try it out for yourself, I don’t think you’ll find out anything earth-shattering. This demo was just to show that wood cannot be counted on to perfectly recover from being bent, leading to the search for a work-around in neck construction.
Thank you for sharing this. I have a better understanting of what happened to all my bolt on neck. I will continue to shave down the fret or fingerboard at the end of the neck to fight the creep.
Have you consider a full aluminium neck with the venner+linen glue on the back and ebony veneer for fingerboard? It would be stiff no? Aluminium is not cheap but it would trim down the process IMHO. No resin to heat or cure.
I think of aluminum as pretty cheap, but machining costs are substantial, plus it's 6-8 times heavier than any material I would consider for a neck core, such as Douglas fir or basswood. It's a pretty light metal, but no metal is light compared to nice, stiff softwoods. Several guitars have been designed and built with aluminum as either a component of or the whole of the neck, including Wilkanowski, Ovation, Travis Bean, Kramer, etc. None have performed admirably, in my opinion, and they have some odd problems, such as a great thermal co-efficient which will suck the heat out of your hands! I once had a customer try to play a Travis Bean outside on a cold night in Central Park, and his hand was so cold as to have been disabled by cramping.
Ken, it looks like the carbon post that attaches the neck to the body is offset towards the bass side. Is that right? What's the reason for that?
If you look closely on photos of my guitars from the back, you can see that I moved the cutaway shape towards the centerline for better access, The 1/4” offset I built into the neck tool helps me to do this nicely. It also insures that the neck won’t be wanting to wiggle in the socket, as the string’s force will twist the pin in the socket, and make it secure. Make sense?
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 never thought about that twist! brilliant move imho, i wonder how did you adress the friction in the action-adjustment system? (i love it and i want to see in solidbody guitars someday😭)
Friction here is quite modest. I use some light grease on the screw threads, and paraffin wax on the neck pin. It’s not an issue, everything glides nicely.
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 That makes perfect sense. Thank you. These videos and your responses in the comments are absolute gold. It's absolutely fascinating watching a true master and easily the most innovative designer/builder of guitars take us through your thought process and techniques.
Another brilliant video, thank you for sharing your time and knowledge, Ken. I've made a few guitars, some acoustic but mostly electric, all with traditional materials and traditional neck joints, either set or bolt-on. I've epoxied carbon fibre rods in necks but that's about as adventurous as I've got so far. I think this neck construction and the whole neck/body joint is brilliant. IMHO the best solution I've ever seen.
I don't have the skills, knowledge, or tool making skills to be able to replicate something even close to this, much as I would love to try! But, it might be feasible for me to try building an electric bolt-on neck, applying the same type of construction and material principals because I think some of the benefits apply equally to that type of guitar.
Would that be OK if I tried? Is this construction and method protected in some way? (is this a dumb question?!). Would I be infringing on any patent, trademark or whatever if I attempt something inspired by this, because I wouldn't want to do that.
Basically... Please Mr Parker, can I get your blessing to try something like this? I promise I'm neither a threat to you commercially, or anywhere near your level of skill!
Thanks again. I can't tell you how much these videos have inspired me and I'm really looking forward to the live neck build.
Please! Feel free to try anything, anytime, this is the whole groove! So glad to hear you’re inspired.
Can one assume that letting maple neck wood age for 7 to 10 years in one’s rafters changes the amount of creep in the wood?
I can't imagine any reason that aging would do this, but it would be a difficult thing to test properly. Wood creeps, some species more than others, but just think of it as a sagging roof-line, it's hard imagine that anything could stop it from sagging over time.
Thanks for this! Just wondering if you use a drum sander to thickness that backing wood to 1.5mm or some other process?
I own a widebelt thickness sander which is my go-to for this kind of job, but if you don't have one, you can resaw to thickness plus a small amount extra, then work it down with hand tools, we've all been there.
I wonder if you've observed any correlation between a species ability to be heat bent and tendency to cold creep?
The US Forest Products Lab has a publication "Machining and Related Characteristics of United States Hardwoods" by E. M. Davis, 1962, Technical Bulletin No. 1267 (hard to find, by the way), which lists for 25 North American species the percent of pieces they were able to steam bend.
One luthier/engineer, Trevor Gore, says in his book "Contemporary Acoustic Guitar" that he believes there is a correlation between ability to be heat bent and cold creep, and he avoid species that heat bend for use in necks.
Have you seen this correlation in your work?
Agree. This is a big component of what we’re studying here.
If I come right out and say that maple is an unfortunate choice for neck material, I might need a bodyguard.
Apart from Fender guitars and “Traditional Archtops”, guitar necks are rarely made from maple. Although maple can be attractive and durable, it’s a dunce in the memory department, and not especially stable either.
There are ways to prepare for and anticipate the unavoidable effects of creep using a wood such as maple, but it’s extra work, and an inexact science.
I’m trying to show my solution for eliminating creep in the neck. I believe my system does this perfectly, while adding significant benefits, such as making it fairly simple to include a perfectly dependable, adjustable neck joint with superior energy transmission.
So what's exactly the problem with for instance, making a beefy tail block, preventing neck dive in that manner?
Of course we all ask this, right? The problem is with the lever lengths. Think of the guitar as a balance beam with the fulcrum at the waist. Necks are long, and the distance from the waist to the tail is not, so you'll need a big weight to move the scale much, and many of us would think this is an ugly move. There seems to be some thinking that I try to make everything as light as can be, and while that may seem to be the case, I'm just trying to make the instrument sensitive so it's more fun to play, and adding mass seems to work against both of these goals, at least to me.
Pretty good show!
Yeah,,,,Just a little tiny bit of complexity.
Wood bend experiment makes no connection to the strength change affected by the treatment of these materials prior. Which is very important. How "old" would be one!
The experiment exceeds the strength element of the fibers, when does one find a neck bent like that for that long ? Especially if the material is green/fresh.
Could we.
Maybe see one of your necks forced/bent to a little beyond it's limit for 5 weeks and see if it straightens out = bragging rights/kudos. lol.
You might have done this already.
That would be an interesting show and tell! maybe.
I wonder if that was the reason for truss rod application/invention??
The adjustable truss rod is utterly unable to address the problem of creep deformation at the end of the neck, and can only adjust the amount of relief in the first octave. That is why we're exploring the effects of creep, and looking for ways to succeed in spite of it.
Nice test, but what i see as not so usefull in here, for a transfere to necks behavior:
you bent the wood and measured the creep, after release.
So far so clear. But - if i keep a neck almost straight all the time with the truss rod, it´s living under different conditions,
than your wood stripes, no matter how long the neck is under pressure from the string tension.
Could it not be possible with all your Fender neck repair for example, that they often didn´t dry the fretboards wood
long enough? so the fretboard shrunk more, than the maple of the necks? This could give an expression of maple is
creeping, while the true reason is the shrunk of the fretboards.. ?
I was trying to demonstrate that creep is a real thing, and I realize my demo looked to some of you like a sloppy scientific experiment, which I apologize for.
The primary cause of the ugly "hinge" behavior enabled by creep in maple and other neck materials at the most highly stressed part of the neck seems pretty straightforward to me, having examined thousands of necks as a repair jock.
If your neck is OK, that's great, but most necks are not in the condition they left the factory in, and I was hoping to relate my analysis of the primary reason for this, which I'll stand behind.
I'll allow that drying can be poorly controlled, especially in days gone by when the "Golden Age" of 20th mid-century guitarmaking was in process. In my understanding, this is a different kind of problem, and not especially related to the permanent deformation I'm describing, that is the elongation of fibers on the back of the neck AKA creep that causes such a big problem in many instruments.
hey, I worry a bit about neck dive. Because the body of the guitar will be very light and the neck rather heavy in comparison. What would your suggestion be? probably I gotta be really mindful with the strap button placement. I don't really wanna put weights inside the body or anything though.
Yup, You, and all the rest of us had better be worried about heavy necks. Balance due to neck and tuning machine weight has often been an issue with fretted instruments. The only example that comes to mind without it is the flamenco guitar with violin-style wooden friction tuning pegs.
My remedies include a minimum size head, super-light tuning machines, and no metal truss rod. Of course there are other ways to tweak the weight lower, there always are, but I’m happy with the balance of my instruments, and have never had a complaint. Corrective weight installed inside the instrument is, I agree, Out of the question.
This is an issue that cannot always be solved in fretted instruments. Lutes were the dominant fretted instruments all across Europe for centuries, and they are very challenging to hold and play. They suffer from not only this issue, but, being bowl-backed, they are difficult to perch on your thigh. Try one and see!
mm might need to go for that titanium truss rod after all then@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440
Ok! So I got non locking gotoh tuners. I thought they were probably a good midground but I have no idea if 36grams for each head is ok. Do you have any idea how much your tuners weigh? I don't really want to alter the tuners by swapping metal parts, for looks, so I'm now thinking about whether I might be better off using these for a future electric build or something or whether it's gonna be probably ok@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440
I think your neck design is probably as good as it gets for wood based guitars(as opposed to metal or full composite). A frustration I have with the more common forms of neck reinforcement, is that everyone puts it almost right through the neutral axis. I realize that it's not a trivial task to NOT do that, but it's still sad to see all that potential stiffness wasted.
Right you are on all counts. For an excellent solution, check out the Allred "D" Tube, inspired by my use of carbon in the neck.
dragonplate.com/carbon-fiber-d-tube
I'm curious how Roasted, Torrefied, or Thermally Modified maple would have performed in your memory test.
Good question, and although I can't claim to have any experience with this, I would think that heat treating maple will not exonerate its bad behavior in the creep department. That is, I would be very surprised if it turned out to be measurably helpful.
Creep in maple is extra challenging for reasons that only maple knows, but all wood is subject to creep, as I was hoping to demonstrate. Our best move is to understand how much any given piece of wood might be expected to creep, and either anticipate it, or externally support it in some way, or both.
Here I've copied my response to another viewer's question about torrefied material....
To be sure, we don't know close to everything there is to know about baked, or torrefied wood, and, as usual, it's possible to "go too far" with this treatment, and reduce the qualities you'd like to improve.
My friend Dana Bourgeois has been fooling around with it for 10 years, and here on his site does a great job of explaining how it all works. Please read his whole text, he carefully explains the complexity and addresses the limits and pitfalls of heat treating wood to improve mechanical properties. Thanks to Dana for his clarity and transparency on this subject! Speaking of transparency, I have been led to believe that unlike untreated spruce, torrefied spruce is opaque. While flat top guitar makers are unlikely to be bothered by this surprising change in opacity, this would be disconcerting to some of us archtop builders, who sometimes use a light source behind a plate to help quickly asses the evenness of the plate's thickness while it is being thinned to adjust its stiffness.
No surprise, it's tricky to get this heat treatment just right, while, at best, the benefits are considered to be modest, I am led to believe.
This does not mean that torrefication isn't helpful, only that it's a complex subject that needs to be explored carefully.
There are no secret weapons in instrument building, though it's easy to understand why folks wish there were!
As usual, the more you learn, the less likely you'll be taken in by "miracle reports".
bourgeoisguitars.com/from-danas-bench-how-torrefied-woods-benefit-bourgeois-guitars/
Years ago, I acquired a maple neck blank that had an outline of one of your Fly guitar's neck shape drawn on it in blue marker. It was a little over-sized around that outline and was over an inch thick. Could that have been yours at one time, or did someone else attempt an imitation?
Anything's possible, I suppose. We did look into maple and made a few tests, but I can't tell from here. Photo?
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 A friend talked me out of it a while back. I'll see if he's used it yet. Maybe I can get a pic.
And how do you straighten maple neck creep on strat?
By removing frets and re-surfacing the fingerboard by removing material. Not a job for a beginner.
I'll plan to do a video on how this works. It's doable.
I would like to adapt this technique to an acoustic guitar !
Have at it!
Allow me to point out that, at least in my opinion, the neck joint we're talking about was devised and is a part of my superior acoustic guitar design, so I can only assume you mean a "flat-top guitar" when you say acoustic.
Apologies accepted. Easy mistake to make, but let's keep our minds open and include the light, sensitive archtop in the field of acoustic guitars, and perhaps at the top of it.
Send Photos!
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 I find your guitars wonderful especially
played by Michael Chapdelaine.
Yes ,of course I was talking about Flat top guitars , I’m even considering to try your finish method in place of french polish because I like the satin look .Thank you for sharing your immense knowledge .
how much for one mold? ;)
Only One?
yeah I'm wondering what something like that would cost to make.seems quite a long process, no?@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440
at first I was thinking 5 lol gotta speed up my amateur process haha but one would most likely already ruin me financially@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440
Master
Maestro!
Why no Spanish cedar?
Um, do I need a note from my Mother? Go for it, I'm sure it would make a fine neck core!
@@kenparkerarchtoppery9440 just wondering since it’s much more common neck wood than pine. Curious as to how it compares to maple and mahogany.
Although this species is very commonly used in classical guitar construction, this isn’t my end of the pool, and I have never worked with Spanish cedar as a builder. This material has a lot of nice attributes; it’s quite light for its stiffness, and quite stable. If I were to use it in my work, I would use it as a neck core material. I do have some lovely vertical grain material in stock and maybe I should give it a try, thanks for the suggestion!
this is really a fantastic gift to the world, though. you believe in your innovations, and you want them perpetuated on into the future, money be damned.
deepest respect, and thank you.
Thanks, Happy to be of service.
...if maple is more elastic than mahogany, why is mahogany seen so often in the sides of steel string guitars, and maple almost never...?
It certainly is more elastic! There are all kinds of reasons builders choose one material over another, sound, appearance, tradition, cost, ease of working, ease of finishing, durability, resistance to cracking or deformation, weight, etc,etc.
Jimmy D’Aquisto used maple for the bodies of everything he ever built, including a bunch of flat top guitars, if I’m not mistaken, He thought mahogany and rosewood were only good for furniture. Go figure! It’s the builder’s call.
Also, there are lots of great reasons to use mahogany for bodies, as I continue to do in my own work. I think it checks all the boxes of these attributes I just listed.