Routing the peghead

[PickinFool]

Anyone have an easy way to rout the peghead of an A model Stew Mac kit? I want to put ivoroid binding on it, but according to the SM instruction video, Mcrostie uses some special 15 degree router base to do it with. Are there other ways to do the job? Thanks in advance for your help.

[Bluemando]

If you have a saw with an adjustable table, you could cut a 15 degree block and fasten it to the bottom of your router. This would pretty much replicate the way Mr.McRostie does it in his video.

[bobz]

I`m at that stage myself. I shall be using the method Bluemando just descibed. I`m using the Dremel tool with the stewmac router base which I shall make a 15 degree wedge to bolt on the bottom. I shall also be using the .090" piloted carbide tipped router cutter from stewmac as well. Here are my rough sawn pegheads.

[bobz]

PickinFool
I`ve now routed my two F5 pegheads using the method described earlier. It really is the best way to do it as it`s really controllable. Here`s a picture of my Dremel with the stewmac base attachment and a 15 degree wedge fitted.

[bobz]

And here are the pegheads routed. Quite a bit of hand work to do on them before the binding is ready to be fitted.

[Hans]

Hi Phil,

It's really so much easier to cut the peghead veneer to the shape you like minus the binding and purfling. Then bind the veneer and file it flat. Glue it to the neck blank and saw it to shape on the bandsaw.

Hans.

[HoGo]

You'll get rounded bottom of the cut using cylindrical bit with an angled base. I did use standard base with almost no clean-up after routing. I bound the veneers before glueing for my last three F5's and it was easy to do, too. I once cut the channel entirely with a knife and scalpels... do not recommend anyone. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[pathazzard]

I have drawn my peghead veneer in AutoCad and was going to cut it minus binding thickness so I could bind it before attaching to peghead. But what do you do about not having the veneer and binding angled? If you do it the way I was going to, the binding will be perpendicular and won't match the angle of the edge of the peghead.

[HoGo]

You will have to scrape the edge of the binding to match the angle. It's not too big an angle to be really noticeable. If you route angled channel you will have rounded bottom at the sides of the peghead, especially when using larger diameter bits, and you will have to bend and twist the bindings at the transition from sides to "end" of peghead. Lynn Dudenbostel routed channel for Thile's mandolin without angled base and now uses pre-cut overlays. Gibson binds and inlays overlays before glueing to peghead and possibly did it on Loars, too.

[Jim Hilburn]

I must disagree,Hogo. Cutting the ledge at an angle, at least across the top is a must, no matter whether you do the overlay in advance or after it's installed. I use a nearly identical attachment as Bobz. I do cut down the sides with just the straight base,though, to avoid the rounded bottom problem.
If you try to do laminated i/b/i binding,you'll cut right into the black if you don't do the angle.

[pathazzard]

If you try to do laminated i/b/i binding,you'll cut right into the black if you don't do the angle.
Getting into the black or not having a consistent thickness of white showing was the concern for me also. I knew that Lynn is now using CNC and doesn't cut quite all the way through so that he has a channel to hold the binding in place, and then sands the back until the extra comes off. There are even pictures somewhere but I can't seem to find them on the net now (it's not in the 'series' of pictures, etc.). I don't know how he solves the angle problem though. I'm pretty sure he doesn't set up the veneer at an angle before machining, but that's the only way I can figure to get the angle on the end and keep it in one piece until binding. I'm thinking about cutting the veneer all the way and just filing the angle on the very end before binding.

[HoGo]

OK, for me and some other folks it works without angle. But never did top bound peghead. Lynn seems to prefer sidebound, too. I just calculated you will need to remove exactly 0.025" of the edge (15deg. 3/32" thick) which is less than a half of the outer white lamination.
How does Gibson deal with this? There are pics of "Bush" peghead veneers being bound in the Gibson factory at Frets.com pages. Hans Brentrup also said he does it this way.

[Jim Hilburn]

I don't want to lose ANY of my outside binding. It's simple to make the angled jig. Mine is just the leftover from cutting the headstock face from the neck blank. Drill a hole in it,and screw the router base to that. I used the screws intended to hold the pickguard on a Telecaster. Then with the Stew-Mac piloted bit,you can't go wrong. There usually is a certain amount of hand tough-up nessesary.
The formula for how much binding you would lose is also complicated by the variety of angles involved with the headstock shape. The worst place is where the binding curves over the top of the small scroll and that's about the hardest piece to fit properly.Your trying to get the binding to do some real contortions as it goes through that turn.

[Mark in Nevada City]

You can pre-bind flat and add thickness (extra layer welded with acetate) to the edges that need it. Then once installed cut/sand to angle leaving consistant thkness of outer ply.

[pathazzard]

Itseems to me you would still have to make the veneer outline shape smaller towards the outer end to accomodate the thicker binding material or you wouldn't gain anything my making the binding thicker. I think I'm going to solve the problem by side binding the peghead and also sidebinding the fretboard to match. Although I still think top binding looks better.

[bobz]

I can`t see where you have a rounded bottom problem when routing with a 15 degree angled base. I set the stewmac piloted .090" carbide binding cutter to cut directly in line with the maple at the top of the peghead. The maple gets exposed at this point, but not along the sides and at other parts. To deal with this I just cut through the ebony with a sharp craft knife and chiseled the ebony down to the maple. The stewmac cranked chisels were an ideal tool for this job. If you cut the shape of the peghead on the bandsaw before you glue the ebony facing on, you can use a colouring pencil round the edge where the binding will sit before you glue the ebony. There`s enough waxiness in the pencil to prevent the ebony gluing so chiseling the ebony should be a lot easier.

[Yonkle]

Pickin Fool: I've done to StewMacs and I did not use the angle, just did it as you would the body.You have to do a lot of handwork too. I agree with Hans. Just cut the ebony a little smaller to compensate for the binding, I did that on #3 and it worked fine. #JD

[RHS]

It's really so much easier to cut the peghead veneer to the shape you like minus the binding and purfling. Then bind the veneer and file it flat. Glue it to the neck blank and saw it to shape on the bandsaw.
I am trying to understand Hans' technique on cutting the peghead veneer to shape, binding it, then gluing it on the peghead and cutting it to shape. #How do you cut it again after it's glued on if it was already cut to shape to begin with. #Won't you ruin the original profile of the veneer(plus damage the binding) by cutting a second time. #I'm sure I'm missing something, right?

[Hans]

Sorry RHS, my hasty post. After you glue the bound veneer to the neck blank, cut the whole assembly to the shape of the bound veneer. I use a sanding drum in the drill press to finish it off to 120 grit, then hand sand to 320 final.

[pathazzard]

I just calculated you will need to remove exactly 0.025" of the edge (15deg. 3/32" thick) which is less than a half of the outer white lamination.
How does Gibson deal with this? There are pics of "Bush" peghead veneers being bound in the Gibson factory at Frets.com pages. Hans Brentrup also said he does it this way.
This brings up something else I'm dealing with. I have several 'prints' from various sources. All of which claim to have gotten dimensions from 'vintage' (read Loar) instruments. Dudenbostel pointed out that some dimensions were wrong and I believe him because he has personally measured the Loars the prints came from. He didn't mention however what correct dimensions were. Davis shows 13 deg. and 16 deg. for peghead angle on the same drawing. StewMac shows 15 deg. and my Gibson Epi measures 13. I imagine peghead angle is personal preference to a point but other things like tone bar position and angle is different on every drawing also. Who knows?

[ShaneJ]

Well, I was torn between putting this on this thread or the 'Beginner's Mistakes' thread.... I was reading this thread and decided I had it figured out - how to cut the peghead veneer WITH the proper angle, bind it with angled miters so as to match the peghead angle, etc.

Well, I think it will work, but I learned something else that might be good to know if you want to bind the ebony before attaching it: If you cut a thin piece of ebony, it's likely to break at the scroll if the scroll saw blade catches it as you're backing out of the first curved cut.

Note to self: Next time, sandwich it between a couple of pieces of 1/4" plywood before cutting and DON'T let the saw blade catch it!!

[ShaneJ]

Here's what I thought I had figured out.

I angled the scroll saw table at 15 degrees. You have to pay attention to which direction you cut to get the right angle. If you go the wrong way, you'll get the slant backwards.

I glued the scroll piece back on, and I'll try to finish the last cut tomorrow. Wish me luck!

[ShaneJ]

OK, I'm really smart! http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

I was about to go to bed when it hit me -- unless I kept the tip of the "peghead" on the left (lower) side of my scroll saw table, then my angle would be off. #I went out and looked closer at the ebony piece, and sure enough...I had several places where the angle went outward from the line I had drawn on top rather than the sides of the thin piece being straight up and down with the edges slanted towards the tip of the peghead. #

At least I hadn't cut off too much anywhere. #The problem was that I still had small amounts of wood that I needed to get rid of. #Now that the outline was cut out, I was able to hold the veneer with the tip down and move it GENTLY and LIGHTLY along the scroll saw blade. #As I kept the tip straight down, I was able to slide it left and right (uphill & downhill on the slant) to "eat" off the extra wood along the bottom edge. #I had to turn the scroll saw blade around backwards to get the other side (small scroll side) done since my scroll saw only slants one way. #Then I was able to touch up the edges with files held 90 degrees to the floor with the veneer on the scroll saw slant. #It all came out as I originally intended, but I don't think I'll do it that way ever again. #

Beginner's mistakes!http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

[HoGo]

This brings up something else I'm dealing with. I have several 'prints' from various sources. All of which claim to have gotten dimensions from 'vintage' (read Loar) instruments. Dudenbostel pointed out that some dimensions were wrong and I believe him because he has personally measured the Loars the prints came from. He didn't mention however what correct dimensions were. Davis shows 13 deg. and 16 deg. for peghead angle on the same drawing. StewMac shows 15 deg. and my Gibson Epi measures 13. I imagine peghead angle is personal preference to a point but other things like tone bar position and angle is different on every drawing also. Who knows?
Loars were mostly finally shaped by hand. There are differences in size and angles of pegheads among them. I measured everything from 13 to 15 degrees on old Gibsons and for sizes you should look at the measurements made by Tony Williamson at the CoMando CGOW. (http://mandozine.com/resources/VDRT/index.php) (scroll down to the end of the page)
There are, however, some digits missing in the widths of pegheads - there is in some cases 31/32 instead of #1 31/32"... The width of body seems strange to me, probably was measured across the arch and includes the lower point.

SJennings, did you use the twisted blade that cuts in all directions? I have electric scroll saw like that but didn't use it because the speed is too high to cut such thin wood safely.

[ShaneJ]

No, I just used a regular blade.

[Gavin Baird]

This is what I have been using for quite some time to cut the final shape of the head stock. Then I use a Dremel to cut the channel around. The top of the head stock requires an additional .031" in width to accomidate the angle ...G

[HoGo]

That's what caused some of your trouble... Using the twisted blade would allow you to hold the overlay exactly with the tip down the hill for 15 degree cut. But with the speed of these saws it would be hard to cut nice straight lines.

[amowry]

Here's the way I've been doing it-- I learned it from Ward Elliot and made a few modifications. I stack up several overlays between 1/4" plywood, screw the sandwich to the same jig I'll later use for shaping the peghead, and cut them out on the bandsaw and drum sander. The tricky part is gluing all the binding on at varying angles, but the final results are great.

[Darryl Wolfe]

On Loars the peghead veneer was cut out first, bound and then installed on the neck. #They used these templates for cutting the soft pearwood to shape minus the binding. They did not account for the angle, which is why the binding width varies significantly around the perghead (after it is installed and trimmed)

[Darryl Wolfe]

Evidence....However, I think providing the 15 degree compensation is a good idea. Lynn Dudenbostels first two mandolins came very close to going "into the black". Maybe that's why he does sidebound.

[amowry]

I didn't realize Loars were like that. I guess my first mandos were more authentic than my newer ones!http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[Kent Barnes]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who has come close to "going into the black" on top-bound bodies and pegheads. #It's enough to make me want to make my next one a side-bound. #I also think about how much easier the miters would be! #I could do a lap-joing instead of a miter, just like the lower points on that Loar peghead!!
http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Darryl Wolfe]

Here's another July 9. #Notice the variance at the waist on the left side and in the small scroll. #I think the peghead was cut to match the overlay (as best they could). At any rate the obvious variance wouldn't be there if the peghead was routed for binding. #(pic Courtesy of Elderly)

ps: Peghead binding for the new Master Models is CNC'd from one piece of plastic http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Dru Lee Parsec]

Could this be a case where following tradition is really beating us up? #Consider the image below:

http://www.brouelette.com/mandolin/headstock3.jpg

The top image represents the angle of the headstock when the headstock shape is cut with the neck horizontal. #It gives that 15 degree angle between the face of the headstock and the top edge of the headstock that causes so many problems when trying to bind it.

What if we cut the peghead shape with the peghead horizontal instead of the neck? #That would give us the lower image. #All the peghead edges are at 90 degree angles and are therefore much easier to bind. #

I realize that the top image is traditional. But I wonder if there's a musical/strength/asthetic reason for it. #I don't know the answer to that question. I'm just wondering.

[amowry]

I imagine the angle is purely aesthetic, but I personally think it's very attractive. It can cause a lot of headaches, but in my opinion it's worth it.