Threaded neck Inserts

[Stratman]

Re: Threaded neck Inserts

CHeck out these cheap prices if you really want to got this route...

http://www.woodworkingparts.com/parts/brass_inserts.html

Have fun

 

[Hot _Grits]

Re: Threaded neck Inserts

Some well known tele player did something similar so he could unbolt his neck and carry his guitar in overhead stowage on flights. That appeals to me, as it means I could hit the ground running on fly-in gigs without paying any excess baggage fees or worrying about my guitar freezing or being thrown around or lost.

 

[jmh151]

Re: Threaded neck Inserts

Actually, beware of the zinc inserts. I just installed some, and they have a tendency to break upon installation. Try to get brass or steel if you can

 

[Ashurbanipal]

Re: Threaded neck Inserts

Teuffel doesn't seem to have any issues with them, but I guess you'd expect that with such a professionally handmade guitar . Three bolts seem to suffice for holding the neck on the Birdfish and the Niwa.

http://www.teuffel.com/english/guitars/niwa/neck.htm
http://www.teuffel.com/english/guitars/birdfish/neck.htm

 

[DLT]

Re: Threaded neck Inserts

The only way this is an improvement in my opinion is if you have a stripped screw or some such thing. That, or if you have a heel adjust neck, this could possibly be advantageous.

The Robert Cray neck has the dreaded heel truss rod adjustment. That is exactly why I am doing it. I have the tendency to tork too hard on the screws too.

Yeah...maybe Fender is alright the way they are currently, but on the heel adjust necks...I say put them on.

I do not expect more sustain or resonance. I expect it to be the same.

 

[ganzosrevenge]

Re: Threaded neck Inserts

i'm going ultimately with a stainless steel kit instead of zinc... first off, my grandfather works in a scrap metal yard, so i asked him his opinion (when yer in business 60 years, you must be doing something right). He told me to put the Stainless in because of its higher resistance to splitting. Also, with the stainless steel inserts, they're apparently more resistant to coming out of their holes in the wood, which means that you can put more torque (35 to 40 inch pounds) on each screw without affecting the insert. What this apparently translates to is about 2300 to 2600 pounds of total clamping power over the four screws, versus about 700 to 900 pounds for wood screws (and if you take your necks off at all, that amount likely has gone down.) (The higher #'s are for contoured heels, which have a smaller clamp area due to part of the rectangular heel being missing and thus a smaller area holds the wood joint.) One of my dreams for these would be to put this kit into a DK1 dinky... but then i'd want to get some blackouts for it... and a bigblock kit from floydupgrades.com and so on, and so on, and it'd be another :banghead: project of mine.

Jerry did though, bring up a very good point. You do need to be a perfectionist with inserts, because they are a guide to your inserts. If they are too far off, you'll mess up a neck, and depending on the neck, could be a premium to replace (American Special Mahogany HSS necks are about $600 each on fleabay at last check.) It's why I'd rather spend the $20 or $30 to let a shop do the job for me. They have the facilities, they have the patience, and even if you're without strat or tele or dinky or "insert bolton neck guitar here", a good shop will ensure that the modification will in fact be stable with the type of strings you use. (For me, it's 11-49 or 12-52 or 12-56 D'Addarios.) Because of this, I decided to eschew my original idea of getting a drill press and whatnot (I am cross-eyed...) and giving it to the music zoo in little neck.

But back on topic. If you have a neck heel truss rod adjust, these are indispensable to extending the life of your neck. If you have an adjust for micro-tilt, they don't hurt. The microtilt will nuance the adjustment, while the machine screws will help to maximise the clamping power of neck to body. If you just like the way they look, and travel a lot, being able to assemble and disassemble neck from body without losing wood mass means that you'll be able to reclamp it just as strong as before. And if you're looking for your bolt-on to be more of a neck-thru in terms of unitary vibrations, you'll get that too. From what I've seen so far, it really can't hurt to do it, unless you go and do it wrong.

My .02

Jason

 

[jmh151]

Re: Threaded neck Inserts

Here's a nice tutorial I just found. This guy uses the steel inserts I prefer, but are a bit more difficult to install

http://www.manchesterguitartech.co.uk/fit-neck-kit.html

 

[jmh151]

Re: Threaded neck Inserts

What I'm really looking for are steel or brass, self tapping, hex drive inserts. The only ones I see anywhere are made on zinc

 

[trevorus]

Re: Threaded neck Inserts

http://www.mcmaster.com/#threaded-inserts/=ehnro

Bottom left. Those would work well, then get some chromed machine screws from the same place.

 

[ganzosrevenge]

Re: Threaded neck Inserts

yup, I'm in the process of putting in stainless inserts myself... wish me luck (and i hope i make it out sans Grievous bodily harm)

Jason

 

[dystrust]

Re: Threaded neck Inserts

Has anyone that was thinking about this actually tried it? The bolt holes on my Squier Strat are getting pretty worn and I must say the idea appeals to me. If I don't go with inserts, I'll have to have the holes plugged and redrilled which would be a bit more expensive.

 

[ganzosrevenge]

Re: Threaded neck Inserts

dystrust:

benefits:
a) much less prone to neck stripping at the screws
b) more resonance / sustain if done right
c) no visible modifications (so you can consider it a secret weapon)
d) really clamps the neck and body together into one piece

drawbacks:
a) if done wrong, can ruin a neck
b) if you really want ones you can clamp hard, avoid zinc, go for stainless steel
c) it's a nearly irreversible modification
d) also need to shave paint off the neck pocket, take stickers off the neck, etc. to get maximum contact


I did onyx forge's Stainless Steel modification with the neck inserts, and I love them. My neck goes into the pocket more, sustain and resonance went through the roof, and it vibrates like a neck-through or a one-piece guitar. It was only $50, and if you're adept with a drill press and can follow instructions, it's about a 3 to 4 hour job. I almost went for the zinc kit, but zinc has a tendency to warp or distort with excess pressure. Just get the inserts and enjoy the strip-proofing, the neck / body contact increase, the sustain and resonance increase, and the tuning stability that goes with a neck that can't move an inch no matter what.

 

[tone?]

Re: Threaded neck Inserts

I think the EBMM way of doing a neck with 5 screws is totally cool and probably one of the best ideas. Besides the fact that the EBMM contour is amazing. \

The absolute BEST idea i have seen is the Tom Anderson Wedgie thingamajig. I would LOVE to hear what Zerb thinks of that one. That is ingenious to me.


Putting more metal on the heel sounds like a bad idea. J Suhr said once that he used instruments and measured that the heel influences the sound of a guitar tons.

 

[philthis]

Re: Threaded neck Inserts

I tried them out a few years ago, and honestly wasn´t too fond of the results. It was IMO detrimental to the tonal response, most likely due to the addition of a third material to the joint, almost universally increased bite but lowered sustain in the cases I tried.

And to be honest: if your neck needs removal so often that the holes start to strip, then the Guitar is most likely a POS in the first place or a parts beater that gets reconfigured every other week.

On a good guitar, the neck screws need to be setup once, maybe twice, and then they´re left alone for the next few years at least... I honestly can´t remember the last time I had a bolt on neck from one of my instruments removed from the body...

You can cinch them down tight as all hell before the threads give, and that may increase sustain minimally due to the increased pressure....but by doing so you´re causing damage on the other side of the heel by forcing a blunt object (neckplate, bushings) through the finish, crushing it and the wood below it, so where´s the point

Zerb, as alway very good advice. thnx for the heads up info:beerchug:

 

[stubhead]

Re: Threaded neck Inserts

This is becoming the industry standard on Telecasters with a B-Bender. They keep you from pulling the neck off. Three of the five custom Tele builders profiled in "Premier Guitar" use them, as do a number of custom bass builders. There's no point in putting in zinc or brass ones, for all that work you might as well use steel... If you don't have a drill press, find someone who does and practice on some hardwood blocks. You can use the drill press - OFF - as a weight/guide to seat the inserts.

 

[Zerberus]

Re: Threaded neck Inserts

This is becoming the industry standard on Telecasters with a B-Bender. They keep you from pulling the neck off. Three of the five custom Tele builders profiled in "Premier Guitar" use them, as do a number of custom bass builders.

Ah? This is a development I´m unaware of... then again, I´ve also only ever seen one tele have it´s neck pulled of using a b-bender, and it was a cheap knockoff to start with... Not saying I don´t believe you, but it´s just not something that my experience has registered to be an issue on properly constructed instruments.... But as a luthier I also have my own opiniion of what a properly constructed instrument is, and about 90% of what is on the market today does not meet those criteria but instead prefers bling and eye candy... Unfortunately in today´s world, features make the sale, not quality

...There's no point in putting in zinc or brass ones, for all that work you might as well use steel... If you don't have a drill press, find someone who does and practice on some hardwood blocks. You can use the drill press - OFF - as a weight/guide to seat the inserts.

+1 on both points. While I´m not an advocate of the inserts themselves, if you´re gonna do it may as well do it right

 

[ganzosrevenge]

Re: Threaded neck Inserts

mine are stainless... zerb, the only reason i got them initially was so i can switch between 2 guards (SSS, HSS) without stripping. I got the stainless ones because they were the hardest i could get. One thing though I will say is that once I got everything back together, my sustain went WAY up, and the whole guitar resonates like one big piece. The caveat is that it has to be done absolutely correct, no part of any insert can be left above the neck or else you will have a borked neck. Ideally though you want the neck and the top of the insert at just about the same height. One good thing though is that with stainless, you can really crank down on the screws without fear of stripping or cracking the insert. Also, the more fixed points you have on a guitar, the more resonant / sustainy it will be... it's like an "anti-joint-flex device" so to speak.

Just my .02, but i swear by them, and I love them, but if i get another guitar, I'm going to think really hard before i undergo the agony of finding out if the neck survived or not.

 

[tc]

Re: Threaded neck Inserts

Oh no...new forum trend incoming! Just like with hybrids, magnet swapping, A8 and Callaham hardware....now we'll tighten those necks like a mofo...

I think it's not a bad idea, but it is pretty contradictory...I was always told not to overtighten bolt ons because I would:

a) crack the finish
b) bend the neck plate

 

[jmh151]

Re: Threaded neck Inserts

Oh no...new forum trend incoming! Just like with hybrids, magnet swapping, A8 and Callaham hardware....now we'll tighten those necks like a mofo...

I think it's not a bad idea, but it is pretty contradictory...I was always told not to overtighten bolt ons because I would:

a) crack the finish
b) bend the neck plate

Crack the finish? Maybe, not likely.


Bend the neck plate? Yes, if you use a cordless drill to tighten them down. It's suggested they only be tightened by hand, or adjust the torque setting on your drill when screwing the bolts

 

[Zerberus]

Re: Threaded neck Inserts

^^ I disagree. It´s very possible to bend a neck plate by hand, those brass cheapo plates will barely hold out more than it takes to keep the neck on. Or for example the first run of Charvel plates were massive chunks of brass.... but they still cracked and bent

And considering that even without inserts very many bolt ons have a "pit" around where the neck plate sits due to overtightening.. well, combine the cracked or bent plate with the significantly higher pressure supposedly possible by the inserts (which as I stated wholly disregards the stability of the finish under the plate for the percieved advantage of being able to massively overtighten the screws compared to traditional wood/wax/screw methods where that much torque would likely strip the neck), and you have thie highest potential for under the neckplate finish damage that wou will ever have outside of inadvertent mishaps.

Again, if people want to use the inserts ´they can gladly experiment With them, but if I can dimension the screw holes in a bolt on in such a way that a hammer drill will spin the guitar around at 5k RPM before the hole even considers stripping (and now you know why I chuck the neck in a vise before screwing it on)... I dunno, I seriously doubt that more pressure is needed or even healthy