Balance And The Bocaster

[Mickguard]

All right, the legions of Bocaster fans out there (all two of you) will be disappointed, but the Bocaster has balance issues. Yeah yeah, I know, you told me so, you told me so. ..

I've been playing it about a month now, and there's definitely some neck dip (not a dive, but enough where my left hand is doing too much work holding it up). You can find photos posted in the Projects in Progress section here.

I'm looking at ways of re-balancing it now. Of course, I'll have to put somekind of tremolo on there now, that'll help, but I think it needs more weight than that.

I thought of moving the strap button to behind the neck, but there's the plate there, and under that is the hole put there for hanging the body.

I could attach a metal extension to create a virtual horn (kind of like that Girl Brand bass), but I think that looks dopey.

I'm also thinking of finding a nice size steel plate and attaching that to the back. I think I defintely prefer the idea of attaching a counterweight, rather than moving the strap button.

I wonder if there's a weight to figure out how much weight to add to restore the balance? (Wish I'd weighed the body before I cut it up now!)

Any suggestions on how to approach this?

At least I'll be able to adjust the design of my upcoming thinline project...though I'm thinking I want to go for a different shape altogether this time...hmm...

[Aakoo]

I really don't know how this would affect tone, and propably is a bad ideal, but I became to think that you could drill small holes on the back of the body and filling the holes with some heavy material.

[marksound]

I really don't know how this would affect tone, and propably is a bad ideal, but I became to think that you could drill small holes on the back of the body and filling the holes with some heavy material.

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Kinda like balancing a crankshaft?

[Daniel Sorbera]

try moving the strap buttons around till you get perfect balance. ESP the one at the endpin try moving it down.

[crafty]

That's easy. Just remove one of the neck screws and use a longer screw to thread through the strap button, through the neck plate, and into the neck. That way you don't have to drill any new holes in the neck plate. Trust me, I've seen someone actually do this on a strat that had balance issues. The cool thing is you have four different holes to choose from to allow you to pick the spot that gives you the best balance.

[Maiden69]

Like above, just play with the strap buttons, move the one in the bottom up or the one on the top thowards the neck.

[mledbetter]

what about removing some wood from the top left.. called it a "Tuned resonating chamber" lol. cover it with a piece of wood painted white and call it a feature.

[frank falbo]

If you build one from scratch, you can set the neck in deeper and move everything back about 1". That should help out, without altering the look of the instrument too much. It might not even be noticable, other than where the neck pickup comes in on the pickguard. Then the pickguard would be a little longer so it would still meet up with the bridgeplate.

For now, move the butt end strap button towards the bass side, and perhaps install 2 strap buttons like Tom Anderson & Schecter. Then put the top "horn" strap button as close as possible to the neck without interfering with the neck itself. It looks like you have the top button toward he edge of the guitar. That will pull the neck down.

I wouldn't mess with removing wood. Remember that the strap button by the neck is the main axis point. So removing any wood, ragardless of it's location, is probably counterproductive, because it makes the body lighter than the neck. I guess what I'm saying is mledbetter is right, that the top left is the place you'd want to remove from, but I think on that guitar, with that shape, it'd be a neutral. It would just lighten the guitar overall, while maintaining the same balance.

What are your tuners like? Can they be swapped for lighter ones?

Dunlop straplocks will push the strap out about 1/2" or so. You could use the lock on the bass side, and then even recess the straplock on the butt end of the guitar to gain 1/2" overall.

[Southpa]

When you take wood away from the body of an already balanced guitar, ie. cutting down your tele body, you can always expect some "issues" to arise. Have a real close look at this guitar. Notice anything different from a normal guitar? Its got the regular Gibson short scale (24 5/16"), 22 fret neckthru, but I moved everything out from the body. I wanted full access to all the high frets. The end result was a couple more inches added to the neck. A friend of mine found it difficult to play because the frets, in relation to the body, aren't where they are supposed to be. I also wanted the truss rod access hole at the base of the neck, thats the little heart-shaped hole. To make room I had to squeeze the humbuckers a little closer together. Of course, I had some balance issues with this guitar, it was damn neck-heavy. But it was an easy fix and is now balanced perfectly. Just send me $5 and I'll tell ya how! naw, just kidding.

I hogged out a bit of wood from inside the control cavity around back and poured in a lead slug. Then I installed Grover mini-tuners on the headstock.

Edited March 15, 2005 by Southpa

[jnewman]

I wonder if there's a weight to figure out how much weight to add to restore the balance? (Wish I'd weighed the body before I cut it up now!)

Any suggestions on how to approach this?

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Here's one way to figure out how much weight to add. What you're looking at is actually a sort of lever thing, so the amount of weight depends on the location of the weight - the farther from the center of gravity, the less you'll need (this is why tuners, which actually don't weigh very much, can make a big difference on the end of the neck).

Put a thin line of tape across the body of the guitar where you want a center of weight to be (you want the line to be vertical when you have the guitar in playing position). Determine where you would like to add weight, and measure how far that position is from the tape line. Now measure that distance from the tape in the direction of the neck and mark it with a small piece of tape. Get a paper towel tube (or some other cylinder that will stand on its end) and set it upright on a scale and zero the scale. Hold the guitar gently on each side where the tape line is, so that it can tilt in the way its lack of balance makes it tilt. Set the small tape marking on the cardboard tube on the scale, and move the guitar down until the tube holds it up level. When the guitar is level, held only by the tube and you at the tape line, look at the weight on the scale - this is the amount of weight you need to add at the position you measured earlier.

Sorry the explanation's so long. It's a pretty simple lever/center of gravity thing, but it's hard to write out without a drawing - if it's unclear let me know and I can post a drawing.

Trial and error works too .

[marksound]

If it were me, I think I'd live with it a while and see if it's something I'd just get used to.

But that's just me.

[ibreakemineedtobuildem]

You could do a quick simple fix and use one of those acoustic straps that tie around the headstock after the nut.I did that with a Warlock with balance issues for years.

[Mickguard]

If it were me, I think I'd live with it a while and see if it's something I'd just get used to.

But that's just me.

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Nope, it's definitely something that needs to be addressed...but I'm pretty sure it's a minor adjustment.

jnewman : well, I think I get your idea, but the real key is as you say, the distance from the center. I draped one of my fancy pump-action clamps off my strap at the back, and that was all I needed to raise the neck up.

frank: they're Grover mini locking tuners, don't think there's any lighter than that. And the neck on this one is very slim, quite lightweight.

crafty: nice idea there about the neck plate. But I'm tempted to drill a new hole in the center of the plate (plugging up the factory hanger hole). I don't really want to cut/drill the guitar anywhere else...took me enough trouble just to get it to this point!

At the same time, I'm going to mount a trem on there, need one anyway. And maybe I can find a cool-looking piece of steel to bolt on there...

Makes me want to rethink my Bocaster Thinline though --on that one, the neck is a baseball bat, AND I want to a hollowbody...I'll just be asking for trouble there...