Tenon width for a setneck?

[slowlearner]

Having decided to make a setneck for this guitar, I'm trying to figure out how wide the tenon should be. I've had my head in Melvyn Hiscock's book and his guitar has a tenon that is 40mm wide and 70mm long on a les paul jnr style guitar. Here's the thing, here's the shape of mine...



You can make out the end of the neck on the righthand template. The tenon I've drawn up is 110mm long and 40mm wide. Thing is, with 40mm width it's only got 7.5mm of wall thickness on the cutaway side. And the whole body is only 27.5mm thick and I'm expecting a tenon depth of around 24mm. So I'm think I should narrow the tenon to say 34mm. I figure the extra length will make up for a slightly narrower tenon. What do you all think?

[Ormsby Guitars]

I will never understand why electric guitars aren't ALL made with tenons that are the full width of the fretboard. It's easier. More efficient. Less chance of a sloppy joint. Easier to jig up for (even one offs). Less end to end grain (which has virtually no strength). Less fretboard to top bonding (which is doing what?).

[slowlearner]

Ordinarily I'd say yes and I thought about it for this guitar (having looked at Carl Thompson's work), but the whole body is so thin, I think a narrow tenon makes more sense.

[Phil Mailloux]

I think your tenon depth of 24mm makes no sense on a 27mm thick body. That leaves 3mm of stock behind the body and if you want to angle your neck like a Gibson to be able to use your tune o matic bridge you have then its even less material behind the body. There's no reason why you couldn't use a regular neck blank of 19mm and use that thickness for the tenon, that leaves you with 8mm behind the body as support which makes a lot more sense. My preference would also be a full width tenon like Perry does.

[Ormsby Guitars]

Phil, what if ONLY the sides of the tenon were glued? Eg: NOT the bottom... (you wouldnt do it like that, but just imagine you did...)

That would still be more glue surface area, than a scarf joint has, which is under the same stress.

[Taffy Evans]

Hi, I don't know if this helps. On my lap steel guitars built over the years [modeled on a Rickenbacker lap steel] I have done it as shown in the pics. I bolt the tenon in from the back. but there is plenty of gluing area, all out of site under the fingerboard.

The body is 34mm thick the neck is 35mm thick [at the stage shown] the neck pocket is 25mm deep X 40mm wide and 100mm long.

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[slowlearner]

I think your tenon depth of 24mm makes no sense on a 27mm thick body. That leaves 3mm of stock behind the body and if you want to angle your neck like a Gibson to be able to use your tune o matic bridge you have then its even less material behind the body. There's no reason why you couldn't use a regular neck blank of 19mm and use that thickness for the tenon, that leaves you with 8mm behind the body as support which makes a lot more sense. My preference would also be a full width tenon like Perry does.

My concern with a full width tenon is that it takes more timber out of the body, where it's weakest. The neck on the other hand, is super solid vic ash that could live with a little less material.

[jeffhigh]

IMHO it makes little sense to narrow the neck into a tenon unless you have a flush cutaway design and don't want the side of the neck visible in the cutaway or the body coming to a feather edge
This was not necessary in the les paul junior double cut for example.

[slowlearner]

so are you advocating a full width tenon too Jeff?