Set v. Bolt-on durability

[Will]

My Ric copy has a bolt-on neck, done sort of like the cheaper SGs where there is sort of an L-shaped piece going into the body to get the joint in the right place:



The question is, if I'm using an ungodly heavy set of strings (121.5lbs), will that joint be strong enough? The alternative would be gluing it in with hide glue all around the neck pocket and leaving the screws in for fun.

Will this add any strength, or is it fixing something that isn't broken?

[robert(original)]

fixing something thats not broken.

[filtercap]

I don't see how glue would be necessarily stronger than bolts. And by adding an extra interface between materials (instead of just neck-to-body contact, you'll have neck-to glue and then glue-to-body) you might make things slightly less resonant. I don't know how noticeable that effect would be, and maybe it's a bit of a corksnifferism, but there you have it.

RobertOG -- all other things being equal, have you found a glued neck to have an effect on sustain or tone vs. a bolt-on? I'm curious.

[robert(original)]

abolutely not,
it depends on the strings, pickups, setup, and the player, WAY more than it has to deal with being a bolt on set neck, or even a neck thru.
think about it like this,
you would expect to get more sustain from a les paul rather than a jaguar.
this is tru in some cases and not in others.
but non the less, do you think the lack of sustain by one or the other becuz of the set neck vs. bolt on neck?
HELL NO!
look at the bridge designs for 1.
then look at the pickups.

the bridge on the less paul has a break angle and is anchored to the body, its not moving, where is it going "fucking no where!"
the bridge on the jag moves with the trem and the trem adds an extra 6 inches of string length behind the bridge.

the pickups, a humbucker, powerfull, pulls sound from the slightest of resonance, in a way its two pickups in one. wait, it is two pickups in one!
the jag pickup is a strat pickup that is ultra shielded to get rid of interferrence, it relys much more on the texture of the string(not the actual texture or wrapiing) but how hard to play and what style.

those are just two big ones, others include, nut styles, pots and caps. all that suff plays a bigger role in sustain than a set neck vs. a bolt on.

[filtercap]

Thanks Robert, though that wasn't exactly what I was wondering about.

What I'm curious about is whether, if you have two otherwise identical guitars, with the only difference between them being that one has a set neck and the other has a bolt-on... if there would be an audible difference. Or if you took a bolt-on guitar, substituted glue for bolts, and made no other changes. Same guitar, same player, same everything-else, but a change in neck-attachment. Would you expect a noticeable difference in sound? Or would the change be so slight as to not make any practical difference at all?

[luke]

I don't think an actual comparison has ever been made. In theory, people will tell you set necks give you more sustain because there's a better joint and stuff like that, but I doubt we're talking brighter or darker tones or anything.

[robert(original)]

people like eric johnson will tell you a north wind produces a warmer tone when it frows over your tube heads, he believes it, but do you?
there is instance that i played 2 of the most identical guitars ever, two ibanez destroyers, exactlyu the same in all respects but one was bolt on and the other was set neck,
no difference, they both looked nasty and sounded like back 80s guitars.
altho they are well made and apparently hard to find.
the difference in tone would be minimal at best.

[dodgedartdave]

fixing something thats not broken.

agreed.

[filtercap]

Sunspots have a way bigger effect on tube amps than wind direction does. Also, Eric Johnson's tone really started to suffer after he got that haircut.

So it would seem that the set-vs-bolts tone/sustain question, while not sinking to the status of "myth," can at least be banished to the dustbin of "hype" and more or less ignored. Next up: neck-thru?

[Tex-czech]

when it comes to really heavy strings I'd worry about the truss rod before the neck joint. What a great Rick copy, I have been hunting for a 4001 bass copy for a while.

[robert(original)]

same deal with a neck thru,
look at all the indie luthiers, they all make neck thru guitars, and basses, something that they always talk about is sustain and told with a neck thru,
now ponder this real fast.
at the VERY least neck thru instruments are at least 3 peices of wood.
now think of this, a rick has 3 piece necks with an accent layer under the fingerboard and then the fingerboard, and then of course the wings.
so minus the fretboard you have 5 peices of wood glued together, now think of the newer versions that have a top set, and accent layer on the body, and 5 peice necks. alot of these border around 12 peices of wood glued in varrying ways, almost like....
plywood........
and no one thinks that plywood is a great tonwood so why would a layer of walnut>purpleheart>bloodwood>and a core of alder with the same on the back be any different?
and then you thro a neck that is 5 peices of wood thru the center and you are off the charts with glue lines.
i had a peice of mohog big enough to make an entire guitar out of one peice of wood, but i scratched the idea when i figured that i would want to sell ti for a couple grand, and finding a buyer for it might be tricky.

[Will]

Gee, and my problem is that most of my guitars have too much sustain.

The neck joint will probably be fine - I'm just paranoid. Although, Rob(og) can always put it back together if it breaks (for $$ of course).

[filtercap]

In construction, it's not uncommon to see steel bolts & plates used to strengthen the joint between two pieces of lumber. So there's got to be something to it. I've never heard of string tension causing a bolt-on neck to let go at the bolts. Glue coming loose on cheapo acoustics, yes.

Okay, this has been haunting me for days, I gotta ask .... John C. Hall of Rickenbacker, right? Evil how?

[Will]

Okay, this has been haunting me for days, I gotta ask .... John C. Hall of Rickenbacker, right? Evil how?

Basically suing everybody who copies his dad's designs, word-filtering the Ric forum, being an ass to the dealers, cranking up the price by $900, discontinuing the budget models, and being sort of a elitist dick.

[paul_]

but non the less, do you think the lack of sustain by one or the other becuz of the set neck vs. bolt on neck?
HELL NO!

look at the pickups.


the pickups, a humbucker, powerfull, pulls sound from the slightest of resonance, in a way its two pickups in one. wait, it is two pickups in one!

Not necessarily "wrong," but an irrelevant point. The famous sustain of a Les Paul is present when the guitar isn't even plugged in. But even ignoring that, it's worth noting that the Les Pauls most championed for their thick, sustaining sound, are the 1958-1960 bursts with alnico II-equipped PAFs. Very low-output, microphonic, not your typical hot-rodded bucker from the post '70s tinkerer's culture.
It's more to do with the design aspects of the actual guitars themselves, including, unfortunately, the neck joint. I have a humbucker in my jaguar, it didn't improve the sustain. I've had a humbucker and T-O-M on my jag at the same time, and it didn't sound like a gibson. Maybe if it was mahogany with a set-neck...

[Nick]

Where's icey's ms paint tone arrows mockup?

[paul_]

Where's icey's ms paint tone arrows mockup?

Yes, we need more science in here, stat.

[robert(original)]

but paul, what about the bridge, i pointed that out didn't i?
and even if its a low output humbucker its surely stronger than a strat single coil
correct?
if you want to think of things in terms of "unplugged"
then, yes
lets examine, the bridge situation, and the break angle over the bridge itself,
not to mention the nut and the tilt of the headstock, used on the earliest of lutes(turtle shells with deer antlers)
that tension over the nut is the same as an archtop(pre-existing the les paul) to increase the overall "haul" of the string.
and remember, that plugged in or not, strings with 10 hours of use will sound much better than those of 100 hours of use, and thus the sustain question comes into play again.

[paul_]

but paul, what about the bridge, i pointed that out didn't i?
and even if its a low output humbucker its surely stronger than a strat single coil
correct?
if you want to think of things in terms of "unplugged"
then, yes
lets examine, the bridge situation, and the break angle over the bridge itself,
not to mention the nut and the tilt of the headstock, used on the earliest of lutes(turtle shells with deer antlers)
that tension over the nut is the same as an archtop(pre-existing the les paul) to increase the overall "haul" of the string.
and remember, that plugged in or not, strings with 10 hours of use will sound much better than those of 100 hours of use, and thus the sustain question comes into play again.

Yeah, you're right about the bridge, it greatly affects the sound, but it still doesn't change everything. A tune-o-matic on a jag allows the strings to ring out a bit longer but they don't resonate with the body as much, producing a throaty sustain.

Dead strings on my les paul still sustain longer than dead strings on my strat or jag. They sustain longer than new strings on my AV '57 strat.

I'm not totally disagreeing with you on everything, but your attribution of sustain to pickups, bridge, string angles, anything rather than the guitar's basic wood neck/body construction: slight exageration. The neck joint has less of an effect on it than some would say, but it does affect it... but fuck the neck joint, let's not forget that the biggest factor is the size, girth, and woods of the different guitars' bodies. They ring out when a bridge anchored to them has a string vibrating on it, and what resistance they have to that vibration is a huge factor of sustain.

[robert(original)]

very tru, but the main question was of the neck joint affecting the sustain, i believe that if you were to have a set neck les paul with a jag setup( bridge, trem, scale, raduis, heck even maple neck on a different body wood) would still have a pretter severe effect.
to be honest with you and everyone else, someone that says a mohogany body of the same size and style( i mean everything the same) sounds different than an alder body is full of themselves and they spout it off just to make themselves seem more knowledgealbe(please forgive me, im sucking in lacquer fume at the momet so ifewar i may be a bit buzzed and my spelling has actually gotten worse)
i will never buy the whole wood=tone idea, except when applied to acoustics.
one good point i should bring up is a chambered african blackwood telecaster that a friend of mine built.
these are the wood speces.
2 peice back 4 piece top, african black wood.
african blackwood fretboard, and mohogany neck.
EVERYTHING is set to the standards of a 98 u.s. telecaster, even the electronics are from a u.s. tele(98)
it sounds EXACTLY like a u.s. 98 tele would sound, no difference, even tho the wood is completely differe, and actually i lied a lil bit, the body is thinner, and chambered so....
but anywho, it sounds the same, yeah im hearing impared but still, i can tell that its the same at least.
btw, african black wood is one of the most dense woods in the world and its incredible heavey so its a possiblity that even tho its chambered it still has the same quilities as a solid alder body, in a way.
thru owning about 50 guitars so far and playing way more than that, im just not convinced of the tone and sustain theory perpeciated by guitar players, especially when i hear people like robert benedetto debunk alot of those "myths"