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Vintage threads from the first ten years

Re: brass plate behind headstock

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5/4/1999 6:54 AM

Re: brass plate behind headstock

You may need to make a custom shim out of a hardwood, such as maple, to fit the entire neck pocket. This shim should be tapered in thickness (a perfect wedge), from the front to the back of the pocket. It's hard to make one, but it's best to support the entire neck heel surface to the body with a full size tapered shim rather than a small spacer at one end.

If your neck does not actually require a tilt for best string/fingerboard/bridge saddle geometry, then a (full size) flat shim is fine. It's easy enough to make a brass shim out of 16 ga. stock. It's more important to have the entire heel surface supported to promote efficient coupling and to prevent a rising heel at the last few frets.

I can't say if brass is any better than hard wood for this purpose. You'll just have to try it and report back here so we can all learn something.

5/11/1999 8:44 AM
nic	done with my brass 'fathead' Well, I cut out the piece for my headstock it took about all day to get it the way I wanted it to look. It is polished and all that. I really don't know if things have changed much as far as sustain. I think the sound is brighter and thinking that is the most important part I believe. nic

5/11/1999 9:56 PM

nic:

So did you mount the brass to the front or the back of the head stock? And roughly how thick was the sheet? (Maybe translate that into terms of printer paper if you don't have a micrometer.) It seems like if the sheet was too thin it wouldn't add much mass and it might even introduce a "buzz" to the sound. But if it was nice and thick, it might really add some oomph! to the sound.

Steve Ahola

P.S. One of my LP's came with a brass nut and I believe that it increases the sustain- even for fretted notes. Perhaps the added weight has something to do with that.

5/12/1999 8:47 AM
nic	I believe the sheet was 1/16". I mounted it on the back so it wasn't as noticable. The problem I ran into was the sheet did not mount flush after the pegs were tightened, so I had to use tunning peg screws. I used three. The strat is a Japanese reissue so I didn't feel too bad about the holes. If it were an older instument I would have moral objections to such a mod. nic

5/12/1999 8:17 PM
Steve A.	nic: I suppose that a contact cement could be used to glue the brass sheet to the back of the headstock to eliminate the need for the extra screws... Of course you probably wouldn't want to do that with a stock '57 strat. Thanks! Steve Ahola

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