Headstock Variations

A Bas Relief Carved Headstock is very unusual… here on ‘Evalina’ with two Plumeria flowers

Aloha and Welcome Back! Today my musical musings will center around headstocks, both in the construction and on the sheer number and variety of them. If you build guitar family stringed instruments, then no doubt you have given this subject a good deal of thought. Although there are a few instruments out there that feature a headstockless design, almost all stringed instrument have a headstock; that portion of the neck that is beyond the fretboard and houses the tuning machines. In the old days, good tuning machines were very expensive and hard to come by. Most instruments had what were called friction tuners or wooden pegs. These were set into holes that had a slight angle to the sides, and the pegs were cone shaped also. I would think that design had at least two advantages: the cone shape would pull the peg inwards, and the increased surface area would help to hold a little tighter.

I, for one, am glad to be born at a time when high quality metal tuners with precise and well made gears make staying in tune so much easier. I have used those pegs a few times and it takes patience and practice to fine tune them. And near constant vigilance to keep them tuned. Modern tuners have one up on the antiques in that the gears inside give a much more pleasing response to the rotations of the tuning peg…. old school was on a ratio of 1:1. That is, if the knob turned one full rotation, then so did the shaft that the string was attached to. It was very hard to get to pitch, and to stay there. The $500 set of mandolin tuners I just installed feature a more modern ratio of 18:1. For every full rotation of the shaft, one has to rotate the knob 18 complete turns! That is a whole lot of turning! I use a simple winder that helps to turn the knobs but others simply add an attachment to their Dremel to do all that rotation with electric assistance. Either way, 18:1 will impress you when installing the strings. The truth is that it’s well worth the effort. Tuning precision and the tuners ability to not slowly get looser has never been better. Modern tuners out-perform the antiques hands down.

The variety of tuners now available is staggering. Shopping for a sub category like ‘ukulele tuners’ will give you dozens of results, from “cheap Chinese trash” to top shelf offerings in the hundreds of dollars. Sometimes the workmanship is pretty shoddy, but as you pay more for well known and respected makers, the quality is very pleasing on multiple planes. Beautifully made tuners of top quality materials, with accents of brass and gilded with gold are available in a wide variety of patterns that fit today’s selection of headstock designs, and the best part is that they are smooth rotating and built to last. Most will have some kind of bearing or extra silky washer to almost eliminate friction, and with the advent of CNC in metallurgy, the resulting increase in precision is every man’s gain. For those of you using older tuners that you do not fully appreciate, now is the time to go online and do some research. Maybe new tuners are right for you.

The Headstock doesn’t just hold the tuning machines. Often, it makes a statement about the player, the builder, and the tradition of the instrument. Consider the violin… it might be said that a violin without a carved scroll is never going to be a great violin. Tradition has it that almost all violins have carved scrolls on the headstock. Maybe every great violin did, and so if you hope to make one that is exceptional, you should probably include a scroll. Mandolins have flat headstocks, that include a taper from a thick nut area to a much thinner top. It might be to save a little weight, but that taper is unique to that one category of instruments, in my experience. But most mandolins have it… just like most classical and Flamenco guitars tend to have slotted headstocks. It is part of a tradition that, like it or not, has been in progress for multiple generations, and there tends to be a prejudgice that surrounds it. So, some instruments have the headstock pre-determined, and then also the tuners needed to compliment them. I put a slotted head on a nice steel string guitar that I designed, once, and got numerous odd comments that it was unusual and maybe I shouldn’t have done that. If it was a classical, I would have been ridiculed if I had not… that’s just how it goes.

I enjoy my position as a hobby level builder in that I get to break from tradition whenever I want, and follow my own path. One of my ways to make an original special order is to take license with the headstock. There are potentially so many ways to go. Recently, my client asked me to review some options for her to choose from. Well… for me the most interesting is the one I haven’t used; the neck without a headstock. The neck simply ends at the nut. The tuners are located elsewhere and it’s just empty up top. I have never even explored where I could maybe do that on one of my own, but it is brave and I like it. One drawback might be that the instrument might lack sustain. It has been stated that greater headstock mass and a very hard neck will help sustain… to the point where some old timers used to clamp a small but heavy metal clamp to the headstock of a guitar in the hopes of increasing the sustain. Urban legend? Who knows.

My favorite headstock type is the setup for slotted heads. Unfortunately, it takes the most effort, but is most visually striking. It is far easier to use a flat headstock than to put the slots in. As an ukulele builder and player, I liked what Kamaka was doing for Jake S. The slotted head just looked so dignified and professional, especially with Jake doing his magic nearby, and I made several in that vein. I have to say that although they required more wood smithing, and it paid off, they still held a drawback in my opinion in that the side plates of the tuners ended up being much wider than I hoped. It makes for a thicker headstock. Maybe we need that, to make up for the mass lost to the slots, and the subsequent sustain loss, but typically, an uke has a neck that’s about a half inch thick at the nut, front to back, and the plates I liked made that into more like 18mm than the 13mm that equal one half inch. My buddy Edmond stuck with flat headstocks most of the time, and the peg shafts for those tuners were so short that even a half inch thick headstock would still be too thick… That thin headstock really helps to keep the weight down, and every time I picked up one of his excellent ukes I couldn’t help but notice that missing mass, and compliment him on such a lightweight and fine instrument.

Mandolin Headstock with Ebony Veneers, Curly Koa Infiity Inlay and top shelf tuning machines seek to make a unique, classy statement

Tuners aside, and finishing up on my thoughts about headstocks, it has to be said that the chance to make a statement is waiting right there at the headstock. Sometimes I tell my students to try to come up with an idea that has not been used for a headstock outline and after some research they roll their eyes and moan ‘Goood Luck!’ The variety is endless. History has it covered. It is such a small space, but no builder ever used a simple, straightforward design like a rectangle or a circle. To the contrary, there are 200 designs that are far from simple, and only a few that are. Now this is the place to put your logo, or the inlay, or the binding and purfling, or the veneer with the bookmatched wonders. It’s time to grab someone’s attention and make the sale, make a statement… hit this thing with a trademark. The head is not just for tuners and staying in tune, it’s a blank canvas to your imagination, and there are few limitations. Celebrate the headstock, and make one to call your own… I double dog dare you to. And if you cannot, do not copy from a well known builder; they will likely protect their hard fought for, unique design. Good Luck!