Headstock reshape effect on tone?

[Bruce Johnson]

Maybe he'll revisit it, but plenty of others have shown that sawing bits off a solid body instrument make little impact. I've only seen one where it did, if slightly, and another with similar methodology where it didn't - basically logs of different woods.

It's true; you can cut a lot of wood off of a body or a headstock without significantly changing the stiffness. No perceptible change to the sound. It all depends on where you remove the wood. Not the volume/mass of the wood, but the location where it was removed.

The same argument is constantly going around about chambering bodies. Do they change the sound or not? It all depends on where you cut the chambers.

And the same with the choice of wood species. If a body is very stiff by dimensional design and construction, then building an identical one from a softer, lighter wood may not have any effect on the sound. The softer wood may reduce the stiffness, but only a little bit. Not enough to get it down into the range of significant vibration. But a body that's soft by design may be dramatically stiffened up by a change in wood species. That's why all these Tonewood debates go around and around. Choosing a species of wood does not guarantee a particular result in stiffness or sound. You can easily build a stiff body from soft wood, or a soft body from stiff wood. The structural design has much more effect than the choice of wood species.

 

[Belcanto]

Work in progress. I ruled out 2+2 headstocks for a little bit of Shrek vibes so these are the main competitors right now. Plan is to use gotoh 350's wich means reducing the tuner holes from 17 to 14mm. Then I will put veneer on the head and dye it down to the rather red tone of the suburst. Here I have hard to find flammed maple veneer so might have to make some myself from the pieces of maple I have.

 

[Dirk Diggler]

I would expect no difference to the ear with those examples, you're only removing tiny bits.
Those changes would be visual only.

Now if you cut the headstock off completely and went headless you might hear a change.

 

[Belcanto]

I tought i'd come back with the results. To my ears I can't say I hear a diffrence before and after. On the strap there is no neckdive. I changed the tuners from stock 90g each to gotoh 707 tuners 60g each. It now fits in my guitar bag and I kind of like the result. Thanks for all the respons!