Best joint for connecting guitar stand neck to base?

[roger wiegand]

I spent a long time hanging out in a major instrument repair shop in California in my youth. They loved that type of stand because they provided a steady and very lucrative stream of repair business, fixing the necks that were broken when the guitars were knocked over. Just say'in

(The strong advice they gave was "put your guitar back in the case".)

[Maurice Mcmurry]

Roger makes a good point. As OP stated it is a design in process. A way to secure the neck, a soft cradle for the body to sit in and a wide footprint would be things to consider.

I screwed my mock-up of the V dovetail to the wall to hang an air hose from. I can hang my 200 + pounds from it if I grab it close to the base.

Screen Shot 2022-11-13 at 8.57.50 AM.jpeg IMG_0893.jpg I trust this black one but it has zero visual appeal.

[Don Parker]

“Not a chance of staying together” is a bit hyperbolic, don’t you think? As I mentioned above, plenty of acoustic guitars have their necks attached with bolts through the head block and into threaded inserts in the end grain of the heel of the neck. Are there more secure joints? Sure. But this joint is probably fine for the task at hand. As others have mentioned, there are safer designs for guitar stands, safer defined as not letting the guitar tip over. But for the question presented (how to attach the neck of the stand to the base of the stand so an end user can do it), I think threaded inserts are an OK choice.

[andy bessette]

...I think threaded inserts are an OK choice.

I get that. But I think it is possibly the next worst choice to screws in the end grain. Threaded inserts would be OK in cross grain or even plywood. However their thin threads do a very nice job of severing the end grain, which is the very same problem one could expect from screws in end grain.

In the interest of providing the OP with sound advice, I would steer him away from such shortcuts, and encourage him to design a joint that is highly unlikely to fail, rather than one which will almost certainly be a weak point and prone to failure and returns or demands for refunds.