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I've been working on my first scratch build for at least a year now. In that time I've drawn out countless headstock designs, none of which I cared for. Tonight I finally found one I liked, so, in a fit of satisfaction and enthusiasm, I transfered it to my headstock and cut it out. It was only while preparing to glue up the headplate that I noticed that it is very similar to a well known higher end production model guitar. It is not that headstock, but at first glance it is very close. The differences are, for the most part, that mine is narrower in the wing sections where they come up from the nut, and it is also slightly asymetrical.
This is my first, and definately not for sale, but it bugs the you know what out of me that after nearly a year trying to design a headstock shape, this is what I've come up with. I don't have enough material left to alter it, so I'm stuck with it.
Sorry, just needed to vent somewhere. Carry on and thanks for reading.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

I would say not to worry about it. I fear that often we can try so hard to come up with something "new" that we no longer arrive at a geometrically pleasing design. Unless you copied it spline point for spline point, it is still your design. Subtle changes based on a foundation can make for a more balanced intrigue, but those are just my thoughts.

We have a tremendous legacy of guitars to look back on - that is a lot of artistic inspiration. I would try to use it rather than try harder to avoid it.

Stephen

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www.ziegenfussguitars.com

Thanks, Zieg! I spent some time today on it. I cut the headstock before I glued up the headplate, so that I could use the cast-offs of the headplate to make a truss rod cover, so today I used a coping saw to cut it close to size and then shaped it to the headstock. It is definately my own design, and I'm growing to love it the more I look at it. A year is long enough to struggle with headstock design. I like it, and I'm keeping it.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

I was at work tonight and i was sitting there trying the same thing. To come up with a original headstock for the guitar I'm building and it is difficult finding something that hasn't been done or something that would be feasible. Some i came up with are really cool looking but if you get to radical it might not be stable enough for the job....Mike

I've always been partial to headstock designs similar to Kevin Ryan's rather than the Martin look, because I don't like seeing strings squished together or making abrupt changes in direction from the nut.

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A higher purpose for wood.
Rich Smith
Issaquah, WA

for the fist guitar i did i trytryed to not make the thinking too critcal so i did a design similar to the bodycut out and it looked nice for the first guitar

After refining the headstock shape on my latest e-bass project, it had similarities to about 3 different makers. It was a design from scratch, built around the following requirements: making the head as compact as possible; functional tuner position yielding reasonably straight strings across the nut; lines that complement the body shape

If I was doing this for anything more than an expensive hobby, I would probably look at changing a couple design elements to make it unique- to avoid irritating other makers. I may be wrong, but I would think that most independent professional builders wouldn't mind if a design element is copied, as long as credit is given.
Rodger