Guitar Headstock Shapes (& How They Affect Your Guitar)

• Are guitar headstocks mainly about aesthetics?
• Can a headstock design influence tuning stability?
• What are the most common headstock designs?

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Guitar headstocks have long been a subjective topic, with many guitar players adoring the aesthetics of one manufacturer’s design and borderline despising others. 

But the truth is that the importance of guitar headstocks goes far beyond looks or merely giving you a point to anchor your strings opposite the bridge. 

A headstock design can influence the longevity of your instrument structurally, and it can even determine your instrument’s ability to hold tune well.

You may even have seen some guitars without headstocks and questioned how these models work.

The most common headstock designs are the six-in-line introduced by Fender during the 1950s and the 3 per side type associated with Gibson and Martin & Co.

With so many designs on the market, most people will have their preferred aesthetics, but what makes these designs function?

Let’s find out!

Headstock Shape – Why It Matters

You may have noticed manufacturers’ efforts to have their own headstock shape.

From Gibson’s classic open book to the pointy metal adjacent designs of companies like Ibanez, everybody wants to bring their take “even if many are borrowing from the past.”

However, headstock design can impact an electric guitar model more profoundly than purely subjective matters such as looks.

Break Angle

Firstly, the guitar’s headstock introduces the break angle between the nut and the tuners. This is very important as it immediately impacts an instrument’s ability to hold tuning for any duration of time.

A famous example is the complaint that has plagued Gibson’s open-book headstock design for decades. A design flaw involving the G and D string’s path through the nut to the tuners and the rake of the headstock angle results in poor tuning stability on these two strings.

This is a problem that many have endured to fix with different nut designs, setup techniques, and even proprietary devices such as the Tune Voodoo.

Stability

Headstock design also plays a massive role in determining a guitar’s structural stability. 

Luthiery techniques such as building scarf joints, incorporating headstock angles, and carving volutes all contribute to the longevity of a specific design both on and off the stage. Having established why headstock designs are so important, let’s investigate some common headstock builds.

Common Headstock Builds

The flat headstock was pioneered by Leo Fender during the 1950s, inspired by the headstock he saw on a roommate’s Tamburica while studying in college.

This design had a few key goals in mind. The first was a requirement to utilize as few materials as possible during production to keep costs down.

Secondly, the design needed to be strong. If the headstock wasn’t rigid enough, it would likely bend under the tension of nickel guitar strings tuned to pitch.

With the flat headstock design first appearing on the Fender Tele, both goals were accounted for; however, a flaw with the design quickly became apparent.  

Due to the distance between the nut and the furthest tuners, “in this case the high G, B, and E strings,” players realized that this design was prone to fret buzz and strings slipping out of the nut slots. 

Fender was quick to introduce a solution in the form of string trees. These work to increase the break angle of the strings at the nut, increasing string tension at this point. 

Pros

• Cheap to manufacture
• Strong

Cons

• Design flaws lead to strings slipping out of the nut and fret buzz, remedied by the introduction of string trees.

The tilted (angled) headstock is another one-piece design introduced to combat the flaws associated with the flat headstock directly.

This design introduced a steeper break angle across the nut, promoting tuning stability while decreasing the chances of fret buzz and string slippage. However, the benefits of the tilted headstock also came with two key disadvantages compared to the straight design.

Firstly, angled headstocks are more time-consuming and require much more material. This makes them more expensive for manufacturers to make, and as a result, you will generally see this headstock build on mid to high-end guitars.

In addition, the titled headstock design is also prone to breaking in cases where the guitar may be knocked off a stand or exposed to similar trauma. 

It is common to see the headstocks of Gibson Les Pauls broken during transit when not packed properly, and this can be attributed almost entirely to the tilt headstock design.

Fortunately, many guitar manufacturers have since incorporated volutes into their tilt headstock designs. 

Voltues strengthen the guitar’s headstock at this weak point, lessening the chance of headstock breakage and, in many cases, straight-up preventing it. 

Pros

• Increased tuning stability
• Prevents string slippage

Cons

• Prone to breaking under stress, “volutes can prevent this”
• More expensive to build

2. Scarf Headstock

Perhaps the most significant step forward in manufacturing guitar headstocks came with the implementation of scarf joints.

This design marries the best aspects of both the straight headstock and the angled headstock with some adjustments that benefit both the builder and player simultaneously. 

Head stocks that utilize a scarf joint are made of two pieces of wood glued in a way that sets the wood grain on opposing angles. Once set, this results in a headstock join that is especially strong and not prone to the issues that tilted headstocks can face when put under stress.

In addition, headstocks that utilize a scarf joint are relatively inexpensive to produce and aid guitar manufacturers in wasting less materials. 

The scarf joint is an ideal solution for any manufacturer who wishes to combine the benefits of a tilted headstock with the strength of a classic straight design. 

Pros

• Inexpensive
• Saves materials
• Strong
• Benefits tuning stability with less chance of string slippage than a straight headstock

Cons

• Utilizing joinery means that time must be allocated for the glue to dry

Common Headstock Designs

Having covered the main ways luthiers construct guitar headstocks, it only makes sense that we cover headstock designs. 

With so many designs on the market, the majority can be boiled down to 6 types:

Most would attribute the origins of the six-in-line headstock design to Leo Fender, as he implemented this concept on both the Telecaster and Stratocaster.

It has since been adopted by countless manufacturers, including Ibanez, Jackson, Charvel, ESP, Gibson, and Schecter. 

Aesthetics aside, an aspect of this design that some players appreciate is how all of the tuners are situated on one side of the headstock. This means that to tune the guitar, players are only required to reach one side of the headstock.

Having all of the tuners situated on this side of the headstock also prevents the chance of the player knocking themselves out of tune while performing.

The reverse headstock became prominent during the 1980s, especially among hard rock and heavy metal tropes. 

It is a six-in-line headstock shape inverted so the tuners face downwards instead of upwards.

Some credence can be given to the theory that manufacturers such as Jackson and Charvel designed this headstock style as a nod to Jimi Hendrix and his upside-down Stratocasters.

The 3 + 3 headstock shape utilizes three tuners per side and is commonly associated with Gibson’s “open book” headstock design.

As previously mentioned, this design can incur some issues; however, many manufacturers have since redesigned the 3 + 3 headstock in a way that remedies these problems. 

A great example is Paul Reed Smith’s design on his PRS guitars since the 1980s.

PRS has ensured that the D and G strings run in a straight line from the nut to the tuner, eliminating the tuning issues commonly associated with Gibson’s previous design.

With 6-in-line and 3+3 headstocks being the most commonly used designs among guitar manufacturers, you may be surprised to hear that there are more alternatives.

For decades, Ernie Ball Music Man has become famous for their classic 4 + 2 design, which many consider the most innovative design since Leos Fender’s first straight headstock.

The Music Man headstock is smaller than most normal headstocks; therefore, it uses less material to produce and adds less weight to the instrument.

In addition, the travel length between the nut and tuners ensures that all Music Man guitars have satisfactory tuning stability. 

All of this aside, the design has also helped to make the company stand out from the pack, winning over generations of guitar players since the 1970s.

Headless guitars emerged in the 1980s after being introduced by the Steinberger company. 

These instruments provide some weight relief for guitarists, and some players even find them faster to restring than traditional headstock guitars.

Headless guitars typically move all of the typical functions on a guitars headstock to the body. This includes tuners. Typically, a headless guitar is strung from the nut, opposite to how you would string a traditional guitar from the bridge. 

Falling out of vogue during the 1990s, headless guitars have since enjoyed quite a resurgence.

Today, many manufacturers offer headless models, including Strandberg, Ibanez, and Kiesel.

During the 2000s, Floyd Rose developed their Speedloader series of guitars, which featured a tunerless headstock. 

These models operated similarly to how headless guitars were designed to work. However, Floyd Rose Speedloader guitars required special strings to be compatible with Speedloader hardware.

This guitar line was discontinued after a relatively short period. Many Speedloader owners have since converted their speedloader guitars to have traditional tuners.

Wrapping Up

Headstock choice only scratches the surface of your guitar selection. To gain a more comprehensive understanding, check out our guides to fret size, and neck types.