One piece necks for 7 string - strong enough?

[127.0.0.1]

Are one piece necks for 7 string strong enough? I noticed that old UVs have one piece necks.

 

[dpm]

Yeah, of course they are. We had a bit of a discussion about this on erg a while back. The old UV necks are quartersawn btw, which is stronger and more importantly much more stable than flatsawn wood. The shafts of the first RG762*'s etc. are flatsawn one piece maple. Headstocks are scarf jointed on all of them, very strong. I'm of the opinion that the 3 piece thing is primarily to keep costs down, small cuts being cheaper than the large ones necessary for 1 piece. Quarter sawn is quite a bit more expensive to produce as the log has to be turned and manipulated frequently during the sawing process. In fact, 3 (or more) piece necks can be far less stable than a single piece as the differing species can have very different expansion rates and moisture absorbtion rates, and there can be big variations in how well dried the wood is. The fretboard and frets play a huge part in how strong and stable a neck is.

So there you go, my 2 cents, make of it what you will

 

[127.0.0.1]

Hmm... my WG587's neck is one piece flatsawn...

 

[dpm]

I'm not surprised. That doesn't mean it's a bad guitar. It's only when you're paying a lot of money that you'd want to be getting fussy over stuff like this.

 

[Metal Ken]

Yeah, of course they are. We had a bit of a discussion about this on erg a while back. The old UV necks are quartersawn btw, which is stronger and more importantly much more stable than flatsawn wood. The shafts of the first RG762*'s etc. are flatsawn one piece maple. Headstocks are scarf jointed on all of them, very strong. I'm of the opinion that the 3 piece thing is primarily to keep costs down, small cuts being cheaper than the large ones necessary for 1 piece. Quarter sawn is quite a bit more expensive to produce as the log has to be turned and manipulated frequently during the sawing process. In fact, 3 (or more) piece necks can be far less stable than a single piece as the differing species can have very different expansion rates and moisture absorbtion rates, and there can be big variations in how well dried the wood is. The fretboard and frets play a huge part in how strong and stable a neck is.

So there you go, my 2 cents, make of it what you will

What about some of the RG Prestige's, where it appears to be 3 piece maple, like they sawed into 3 and flipped the middle piece (Or whatever the method is)?

 

[dpm]

That's cool. If the middle piece is reversed it will want to move (bow) in the opposite direction to the other 2. Once the neck is shaped the middle piece is roughly twice the size of the sides so it should theoretically cancel out the stresses.

Of course there's another reason this construction method rocks...
It allows the use (once again) of flat sawn wood!
I've used the 3 piece method myself for exactly that reason.
Eg. grain of a flatsawn blank looks like this
-----------------------
-----------------------
-----------------------
-----------------------

once cut into 3 and rejoined side to side we get this

||||||| ||||||| |||||||
||||||| ||||||| |||||||
||||||| ||||||| |||||||

add in the advantage of having that middle bit flipped, pretty cool eh?

 

[Drew]

You lost me - which direction do the strings go in relation to the grain there, top of your post to the bottom, or left to right?

-D

 

[dpm]

Imagine we are looking at the neck from one end. Probably easiest to picture from the body end as it's still rectangular.

 

[dpm]

so this is the neck with the dots representing the string cross section


. . . . . . .
||||||||||
||||||||||

Help any?

 

[rx]

does the string go vertical or horizontal?

 

[Drew]

A.)

headstock ====> bridge
. . . . . . .
||||||||||
||||||||||



B.)

headstock
. . . . . . .
||||||||||
||||||||||
bridge

 

[keithb]

What dpmasunder is saying is:

flatsawn neck:

strings, running 'into' the screen: . . . . . . .
grain:                              -------------
                                    -------------
                                    -------------

3 piece:

. . . . . . .
|||||||||||||
|||||||||||||
|||||||||||||

 

[dpm]

This is the angle

The grain on this Warmoth is like this

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

 

[dpm]

Exactly keith, hard to explain with dots and dashes lol

 

[Drew]

Oh, jesus, lol, Ok, I see now.

Sorry, I was thinking we were talking about along the fretboard, and not a horizontal cross section.

And yes, that makes perfect sense why a quartersawn would be more resistant to flexing than a flatsawn.

-D

 

[dpm]

I suppose I'm used to looking at necks at angles most folks don't see them from.
Flat sawn isn't just weaker, it has more tendency to cup and twist, depending on how the tree grew. Twist is fairly self explanatory. Cup means it wants to bend into a you shape. Now, on a big chunk of furniture this usually isn't much of a big deal. On a delicate guitar neck, with string tension pulling one way, and a truss rod pushing the other, it makes a difference.
No matter how a tree is cut, there is always tension in the wood. Every time that wood is resized things move. Sometimes a lot, sometimes very little.
That's what makes wood interesting to work with. It's a total pain in the ass.

BTW, the prettiest, most figured cuts are flatsawn.

 

[dpm]

you shape

Nice one Chris

 

[127.0.0.1]

What about 5 piece necks Ibanez have on all their 7 string models?

 

[jski7]

What about 5 piece necks Ibanez have on all their 7 string models?

The 5 piece necks are recent . The early 7620s have one piece necks (two piece if you count the scarf joint) . Funny thing is , my 7620 neck (1 pc) hardly ever moves , but my K7's neck (5 pc) will bow if a bird farts . They both live in the same conditions , so I don't know .

 

[dpm]

I'm not at all surprised to hear that