Detail around the neck joint

[buddyellis]

Does anyone have a photo of the fingerboard extender/crosspiece binding & etc in detail. I'm hunting but can't find anything that shows exactly what that is supposed to look like (up close).

[Stanley Cox]

Hey Buddy, Stew-Mac catalogue #110 page 84 has the body block set. The pic of the2 items is on the left. Match tem up to dimension of the blue prints you use. Hope this helps.
Stanley

[Michael Lewis]

Buddy, apparently you are trying to make a replica of a Gibson F 5. Spend the money and get a set of plans, those offered by Stew/Mac are plenty good and not expensive, the best plans are those drawn by Adrian Minarovic and are available from Elderly Instruments but cost considerably more.

Otherwise, you don't have to make all those little parts. There is no law or rule that you have to follow directly in the Gibson design.

[buddyellis]

I have the plans from Hogo (actually using them to make CAD drawings of certain pieces for possible milling), but the detail on the 'ears' is not apparent. I found a couple of photos in the archives, finally, but was hoping someone had, or would mind taking a close up of both sides of the neck joint from the topside (mainly I was interested in how the shaping/slope of the ears is done, and where it starts) This is my first 'scratch' build so I was going 'by the numbers' :-)

Michael, this is a detail I've never really noticed, nor thought about. I can see where that piece could add some stability to the neck joint, but otherwise, do most of you not use it? Just not cut the top at that point, leave the spruce intact, and dovetail right through it? Build the fingerboard extender integral to the neck (why is is separate in the first place? Easier to make the neck?

Seems to me the neck would be more stable, and less prone to get a 'hump' where the neck joint is if the extender were integral. However, what does this cause any issues I'm not thinking about?

[sunburst]

Here's what I think.
Orville Gibson made some of his earliest mandolins with necks and rims of one piece of wood. The top was "notched in" so that the fingerboard surface of the neck could be level with the top, and that left a butt joint between the top wood and the rim/neck wood. That joint later came to contain a piece of binding material, the "cross piece", and though the rim and neck were eventually made from separate pieces of wood and the butt joint was no longer necessary, that "cross piece" came to be thought of as a design feature so it stayed around.
It's basically vestigial, but it does no harm so most builders still do it that way.

[Gail Hester]

I hope this helps answer your question. Here are a couple riser blocks and then a picture of one installed and shaped.

[Gail Hester]

This is the only picture I can find of this area and it was on my #1 F5. It's funny how you stop taking pictures of the details.

[buddyellis]

The second is what I was looking for, thanks gail!

[thistle3585]

Gail,
How is that extension attached?

Andrew

Just for your reference (and not as an example to follow) this is what it looks like on a higher-end Korean mando. This particular one had a big hump at the neck joint that rendered the mando fairly useless. After peeling the finish off and doing some disassembly I'm less than impressed with the build quality. I'm having fun with it though, it cost me less than a kit and I'll make it playable.