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Is a 16 degree headstock angle too severe?

Now for the story
I was at my dads shop today (mine now) looking for some things and uncovered some really cool poplar boards he had cut from behind the acreage a few years back super colorful brown / Black / green / White...
I was going to saw it down and make some head plates. Thought it would be cool to have that connection w part of the instrument.
Upon sawingnit up and running it through the drum sander the white wood is just eaten up w holes / termite tunnels.
Bummed :/
I MAY have enough width left w the dark stuff but it will be close .




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A lot of headstocks have a 15 degree angle. I don't imagine that one more degree would matter structurally. Are you thinking about a solid headstock or a slotted headstock?

Are the holes that are visible in the photos the extent of it, or are there a bunch of tiny ones too? If the connection to the wood's history is important, you can accept the holes and make them a feature as is done with Ambrosia maple where the beetle holes are filled, either to match the wood color or to contrast with it.

_________________
Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Well under the holes are tunnels :/


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1 - most Gibson style headstocks are 15 or 16 degrees
2 - you could possibly fill the holes with epoxy as is sometimes done with splated wood
3 - you could easily book match two pieces of the dark wood to make a nice head plate.

Exactly what I did;)


Pardon the nasty glue line. Not scraped clean yet


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Nice!

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Thanks:) here it is all finished this morning.
The seam won’t be in the middle so I don’t believe it will be noticeable
.
B



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That's really nice looking wood. Even though you got a good clean joint, the joint jumps out to my eye due to the interruption of the grain and color. My eye was immediately drawn to it.

It isn’t invisible.
If I can’t hide it well I won’t use it


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Not seeing the offset helps a little. But still visible


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Yes. You could probably draw the eye away from the joint or even cover it up with some inlay. Or joint in a wedge shaped piece with a highly contrasting color to make the joint look purposeful.

That’s a pretty piece of poplar. If you haven’t seen any pictures of “sun tanned” polar, google it. Apparently, sun exposure changes the colors a bit but in a really nice way.

I’ve never done it myself so you would want to experiment with scrap to see if you like it better or not.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

My suggestion was to take two pieces and flip one over to book match them. The glue seam is the center line down the headstock. Not a very good picture (finishing going on) but this came from cuttoffs of the top wood and matches it