When Sukar necks go wrong

The Sukar Neck, Exactly

Thanks, Samir, you have completed the investigation! now we know what the little nail on the back of the neck is for: to immobilize the threaded rod. The Fadi Matta design looks more classy, but also more costly. Besides, there's a reason we wear clothes: when you strip it all down, who knows who will look prettier. At last, let's get this "intent" out of the way and look at exactly how it works.

As you will see, it's very doubtful that this mechanism is only a way to avoid making a simple wood joint. What I have heard from people that spent some time with Mr Sukar, is that the adjustment of the action is part of the final setup at the factory.

I have a Model 14 on the bench at the moment, and the way it behaves leaves no doubt in my mind as to the intent. See the drawing below, in which the angle of the neck-body junction is exaggerated to highlight the mechanism.

When you loosen the wing-nut, the neck becomes more free to let the strings pull it forward. The strange sensation, with the strings off, is that the neck is immobile but becomes a bit rubbery as you loosen. I had often wondered how the "hinging" was done. It's simply the flexing of the two smaller secondary steel rods you feel, once the central bolt is no longer pulling back. These act as both spring and hinge. As you push the neck forward, you reach the moment of contact and start pulling against the position of the wing-nut on the washer. If you loosen the nut completely, you can push a bit further. It's the closing of the fingerboard gap that limits forward travel. Look at the sketch, and imagine flexing the neck both ways on the secondary rods, up and down on the drawing. With the neck forward, the gap tightly closed, and the fingerboard level, the action (the height of the strings at the neck-body junction) will be about 4 mm.

As you tighten, you first feel the neck lose its rubberiness and stiffen. Then as you tighten more, the nut on the main threaded rod gradually pulls it to a position a few millimeters back from the soundboard plane, and the inner faces of the neck-body joint come together. It's something you sense very graphically if you try it with the strings off. That will normally correspond to an action a hair under 2 mm. This gives the narrow range of adjustment that is needed, without affecting the effective continuity of the fingerboard at the neck-body junction. Even with the neck all the way back, you can't slip a sliver of thin paper in the tiny fingerboard gap. I'm tellin' ya, it's brilliant.

Now that we understand the limits, if one wants an action outside this range, for some reason, we can see that one should loosen the neck, shave the faces of the lower gap, or insert shims as needed, a simple job, and not force things, or one of two tragedies could happen. Pulling/twisting the central bolt by over-tightening will not lower the action more, but will break the immobilizing cross-nail (as happened here). In the other direction, if you loosen the nut completely, the neck can only go so far. If you force it forward, the top (fingerboard) gap will be compressed and I'd worry the wood at the gap could be damaged; I'd hate to hear a "crack".

Only Mr Sukar could tell us what his "original intent" was. It gives the user a few millimeters of range in the action. If it were only a joint, he wouldn't have designed it with ONE exposed wing-nut that happens to control the neck angle. I find the whole design simple, inexpensive, and very smart.

Obviously it's not all that easy to repair if you break it. The owner's forcing the wing-nut with pliers was clearly a bad idea. He didn't understand the internals, none of us did. To repair, I think I would have drilled out the original cross-nail, Samir, but your solution works even better.

I'm a little puzzled at the "disappointment" and "debate". Frankly, what's the issue? On a traditional-joint oud, as labor costs rise, is it a minor and appropriate job to saw off a neck and make a new joint -- just to adjust the action? or change the nut and re-plane the fingerboard many millimeters deep?

As to whether people want this, it's a personal matter. In playability and sound Sukars speak for themselves. Unlike some of the abominations that spring up as "evolutions", or hasty modifications that alter the instrument's feel or character, this is an internal construction detail of a fine traditional instrument. Judging by all the ouds that I've played with a miserable action that had clearly risen and needed fixing (including quite expensive instruments), the traditional construction isn't all that perfect either.



p.s. Anyone who wants to take advantage of the Sukar sound, but hates metal, could solve the problem in half an hour. Unscrew the butterfly-nut, pull the neck apart. Back out the 2 secondary rods with a screwdriver, drill a little to reach the immobilizing nail and pull it, then grab and back out the main rod. Insert some wood dowels into the holes and solidly glue the neck in place. Fill where the little nail was, and you are ... happily back in the early 20th century.

Thank you dear Samir for the quick reply. I'm going to wait to do it right, when I change the strings for high ff tuning. For now I'm going to try to pull the neck forward a little and weasel out a tiny bit with a spatula and some sandpaper, I'll level it later. I only need to drop the action from 3mm to 2.5mm. Too bad that overhang is there.

BTW i'm still amazed at how more Egyptian a Sukar sounds when you raise the action! And there i was, feeling sorry for the people who have those expensive fixed neck ouds with the action, well .. is it time for the neck job? No, it's just becoming more ... Egyptian

I was able to get a little more clearance at the edges, so that I can now flex the neck to the desired position by hand, but not by adjusting the wing nut. It's too hard reaching the mating surfaces without taking the neck off

Can you please tell me a little about how you applied a little heat and moisture? Do you think the neck will come off just by pulling and gently working it side to side?

I can understand how your client broke the retaining pin, it's very tempting to force the nut, but of course once the two faces are mated, it can go no further. The way you repaired that might help others, I hope not me.

The wood settled after a year. If it's not the computers crashing, it's the instruments needing work. Judging by other ouds I've played, this is pretty common. With the Sukar neck, the action i want is now a bit outside the range of adjustment, which now goes from about 3.5 mm to over 5 mm. At least with this design, taking the neck off and changing the range of adjustment is not impossible. I think Sukar should start out with a wider range, even if it means the gaps must show. If this were a fixed neck, I would be facing a costly neck job.

Time to touch up the Tung Oil coating on the neck. In spite of being played every day for over a year, I only see a little wear at rast, etc, barely visible.

He makes it that way because most players want it that way. No body would want anything higher than 4mm, Idealy I like 2.5mm

If you are ok with the possibility of refinishing the neck slightly. This is what I do, I take a seringe and inject tinny amounts of water in the joint.
then with dish washing cloth over the neck for protection I apply a hot clothes iron for about 30 seconds and it usually loosens it right up. If you dont have a seringe you can just moisten the dishwashing cloth around the area of the fingerboard joint.

you can also do it dry. This what I did for this particular oud since the nut was broken there was a lot of movement I could do by hand so I just wiggled it a bit and it popped clean off. In this case there was very little glue.

The design uses the steel rods to align the neck at a set angle. There is a little bit of play room with the rods but not much.
Also, if you tighten the wing nut back to max it will pull the matting surfaces right up against each other which will lower the action.

in order to do what you want, you have to remove the steel rods and alter the angle of the neck's mating surfaces. Otherwise you wont be able to tighten the wing nut again. Also you may also need to plug the current steel rod holes and redrill them at a higher angle.

If this was a fixed neck... it would be really much easier. About cost of a neck reset, they are not expensive if you do them yourself and it seems like you are willing to toy around with this neck joint... I dont see the big deal in resetting a wood neck joint.

$150-300 per oud. Exactly. That's not pocket change for me. I like the Sukar design.

Thanks, Samir!