I have a rough draft of what the guitar will look like. The bridge is very forward on the body so the cutaway wont look huge. I am planning on a single humbucker.... I assumed it would just fit in the space... I have made a fret calculator in excel, and I can change the scale length if I want. The distance from bridge to 36th fret is 3.187441", of which a small portion of it will be used up by the part of the bridge infront of the sadle.
If I were to make a longer scale, say 27", that would still give me only 3.374938". The 2/10 of an inch difference doesnt seem like it will make a whole lot of difference. However if it would be possible to create a 27" or 28" scale... with B tuning.... without needing a custom-made truss.... I think I might do that.
OK. I just did some measuring on my current guitar. The pickup and mounting ring is approximately 1.8". I think it is standard sized. The area on the bridge after the saddles is 0.5" for the low E string, with all the others being less. So the 1.8 + 0.5 = 2.3", which will fit on a 36 fret guitar with a standard sized scale.
I have not yet gotten any parts yet, but I have ordered them. The bridge is the same as on my current guitar (where I replaced the old bridge), only in black. The pickup is a humbucker, which is from an ebay store, and doesnt seem to have any recognizable name brand on it. I am trying to keep costs very low on this guitar ( so far $55 for the machines, bridge, humbucker, strap buttons, volume knob and pot). I will be able to get cheap output, wire, string trees wood and nut from a local store. I still need more information for the fretwire and trussrod, before ordering.
Isaac.