Sloane Neck Tenon for Uke use?

I'm curious if any builders have used the neck tenon from Irvinmg Sloane's guitar building books for Uke? I did a few steel strings years ago, and although it takes a bit of close fitting initially, once the drilling jig is made the joint is very repeatable. The great thing about the joint is it is fast and works essentially like a dovetail but doesn't require all of the precise fitting and chances for error that the dovetail brings about.

The key to its functionality is the two dowels that angle inward and to the rear. These two angles allow the joint to slide together easily, but lock the neck shoulders tightly to the sides when the joint is seated with light downward clamping pressure.

In practice the neck is positioned just proud of the final surface level and the two angled holes are drilled for the locking dowel joint. The dowels are glued to the tenon cheek dowel recesses before the final neck gluing. The fret board is joined to the neck, the neck is slipped into the mortise with glue, and light clamping pressure is used to seat the neck with the fret board against the body face.

The drawing shows a tenon that is added to a neck morise prior to fitting the locking joint. The advantage of adding the tenon as a seperate part is the ability to easily lap the neck heel to align the neck before the neck tenon is added.

I'm not advocating it, I prefer a bolted joint with a tapped cross dowel nut. I'm interested in opinions, though. If the details were worked out it would result in a very strong lightweight permanant neck joint.

I probably don't understand the joint because I've never done it or seen one, but it looks over-complicated for the ukulele.
For the very small stresses that a uke "sees" at the neck joint, a straight mortise & tenon alone has plenty of glue area, and fitting is pretty simple.
The tapered dovetail joint is traditional, and has the advantage of pulling the joint together without clamps.
Is the joint glued without the fretboard? That may be what I'm missing.

Hi David.
The joint can be done before the fret board is added or after. Sloane's joint was a bit simpler due to the neck and tenon not being seperate sections, but the extra step in adding the neck portion of the tenon would allow the heel to be easily fitted. It's not actually very complex once the initial drilling gig is made. I've made a few tapered dovetail joints in the past, but my experiance (or lack thereof...) was they were very fussy and time consuming. Irving Sloane developed this joint as an alternative to the dovetail, as it was strong and locked the heel tightly to the body without all that careful fitting.

I'm in agreement about the possibility that this would be over-engineered for Uke use, just thought I'd throw it out here as food for thought. I REALLY like bolt-ons.

I would take any all-wood joint over any joint with screws or bolts.
The dowel-locked dovetail is commonly seen on Mandolins, and that joint is sort of designed never to be taken apart. That is ok with me, as the "taking apart ability" of any neck joint is over-sold in my view.

David Newton said:

I would take any all-wood joint over any joint with screws or bolts.
The dowel-locked dovetail is commonly seen on Mandolins, and that joint is sort of designed never to be taken apart. That is ok with me, as the "taking apart ability" of any neck joint is over-sold in my view.

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I hear what you're saying about the over-emphisis on neck removal. I built an F5 mando for myself about 20 years ago and it has a dowel locked straight sided tapered tenon joint. The body/neck joint came out letter-perfect on my first try and has been rock solid all these years.

That said, after building many traditional dowel stick open back banjos I started experimenting with neck heel joints with cross dowel nuts embedded in the heel, because the heel profile cut is VERY difficult to get right. I've seen many off-center necks from both large companies and boutique makers. I'll never do another standard dowel stick neck again after experiancing the benefits from a removable banjo neck. I'm sure the Uke isn't that sort of problem, though.

I recently made a custom low-tuned mandolin which has an identical body shape as a baritone uke and I loved using the cross dowel nut for that, too. I'm sold on the ability to bolt the neck joint up tight to the body to work out any potential problems with neck tilt or alignment. I'm working towards doing a tenor uke when I get the time and I might even do a bolt-on neck just for alignment and glue-up. You could certainly take the bolt out and install a plug if leaving the bolt in would cause any mental duress.