Official Luthiers Forum!

I've run out of the steel neck inserts I like, and so has McFeelys. I'm on a backorder list but they've been OOS for about a month so far, no idea when they'll get more in.

I really hate the brass ones with the slit on top but will resort to those again if I must, but I would like to find some of the hard steel ones with a hex head driver.

McFadden's isn't accepting new accounts, and anything on Amazon that looks temporarily acceptable seems to be in the 7-18$ range...each!

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Do any of these look right?

https://shop.stafast.com/threaded-inser ... d/screw-in

Lee Valley has a large selection and is where I get mine from. Your local hardware store will probably have them also.

I just go down to my local Home Depot. In fact I'll be stopping there on my way home tonight.

Hey, yeah, the Stafast SK are the ones. Lee Valley and HD only carry the brass ones which I don't like...

Thanks!

Of course they're out of stock

I always say "if you can't get it from McMaster, they don't make it"

https://www.mcmaster.com/#threaded-inse ... 75j9ylw4tc

Plus, shipping can be so fast that it seems like they sent your order before you placed it. Cost of shipping has always been reasonable from McMaster for me.

Ill try McMaster s again, but last time I did they were not accepting new accounts..l

Bummer!!

Ed, have a look at this Canadian site:
https://www.globalindustrial.ca/g/fasteners/Threaded-Inserts/thread-inserts-for-wood/E-Z-Lok-Die-Cast-Zinc-Alloy-Hexdrive
I was looking here for some other stuff, but remembered seeing what appeared to be a large assortment of threaded inserts.


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Thanks Tim,

Unfortunately those are not the right kind...

Pity — that site is the most diverse of any fastener supplier I’ve come across in Canada.
We’ll be keen to know how you finally source these.


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They kind I like are hex insert hard steel. They had hex head zinkmfor soft wood, and slot top hard steel, so not quite right.

Happily, however, McMasters was indeed open to taking an order, which took all of 5 minutes by phone, and they even cover the brokerage, so Yahtzee!

Thanks, folks:)

What size inserts are you all using? Thinking about going this way, too.

_________________
Tony Thatcher
Bozeman, Montana

I'm using first down under steel...

Try a company named fastenall. They have nearly every type of fastener you can think of. (Now watch... they won’t have the one you need)


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They don't...

Stafast products Canadain Mississauga

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My memory is so good, sometimes I remember things that never happened.

Stafast out of stock...

I got my last batch from 'Rockler'.

I got my last batch from 'Rockler'.

I prefer the zinc inserts with the broken thread. I think the bite a little deeper into relatively soft hardwoods like walnut and mahogany.

Stepping back from the choice of which threaded insert..........my question would be why use threaded inserts? I have had problems of them stripping out of the end-grain in the neck, as have other people. Perhaps your hardware or technique are better than mine, but it just seems like a sub-optimal method to me. I use barrel bolts inserted in a hole drilled up from the heel. Even stronger is the method described in the Gore/Gilet books. They cut a square channel up from the heel and inserting a square-profile brass tube, into which there are threaded holes for the bolts. That method seems completely bullet-proof, but I am not tooled up to cut the square hole.

I want the bolts to be a softer material than the inserts. If, in the unlikely circumstance either needs to be replaced, I want it to be the bolt, which can simply be replaced, rather than the insert, the replacement of which would be quite the chore...

Because if you get the right threaded insert your problems with them more or less disappear.

I'm not too concerned with 'stronger', it only needs to be 'enough' strong to hold the neck immobile under string tension.

Definitely the G/G method is the best, but, at 1599 base, not really practical for me.

If you're worried about the inserts stripping the endgrain, you can drive a 3/4" dowel up through the heel and put the inserts into that, which I have done in the past both as a preventive object in soft Spanish cedar, and as a restorative effort in same. In Khaya, my main neck wood these days, it simply isn't a problem.

Having gone from dovetail, to M&T, to double M&T, to bolt on butt joint with glued tongue, I don't find the last system subpar by any means at all. I had first considered it that myself, and had intended only to use it on my budget line, but once I saw how excellently it works, it's now my only neck joint.

When my base price for the fancy stuff is 5k$, I'll consider moving to the 'better' method in the G/G books, but even then not so much because I think the extra work yields a practical payoff, but so I can point to it as part of why it's 5k$.