December 4 2014 – Blue tape covers the inlay for final fretwork on Ridgewing #1. Nate is justifiably proud.

The silver glint in the gap between the neck and the headstock is a dead give-away for a hand-carved aluminum lever. The dark and almost invisible headstock dowels on either side of the lever indicate 6mm carbon-fiber rods. Before we sourced the carbon fiber rods, we used to use ¼” steel rod stock for the headstock pins, which were way heavier. Headstock and neck joint design evolution is all about reducing mass while maintaining adequate strength.

It is surprisingly easy and quick to hand-make an aluminum headstock lever. The aluminum lever is rough-cut on a band saw out of a 3/8” piece of aluminum stock and then hand-shaped from there using a combination of belt sander, spindle sander, wood rasps, then wood files, then regular files, then grades of sandpaper, then steel wool, then buffing wheel. The lever’s axle is 5/16” steel rod.

Here Nate is shaping the critical cam surface profile by eye on the spindle sander.

Even with dust collection on the power tools, a lot of the work is in a vise or walking around between tools, so when you get done you have the faint but distinctive taste of aluminum dust. The proper equipment would include a fume hood for working in the vice, and a blow-down table for the open hand operations.

A hand-made lever like this was used to make a mold for carbon-fiber lever which again saved weight. At first the carbon-fiber lever failed because of how thin the matrix was on either side of the axle.

This was fixed by grinding the lever axle down to an hourglass shape which was still plenty strong, and it allowed for adequate thickness of the carbon fiber all around it.