Mickguard Posted July 9, 2005 Report Share Posted July 9, 2005 Well, I took the surform to the back of my tele yesterday....I copied the contour from my strat onto the back and went at it....so far so good, only took about 15 minutes to get it roughly into shape. Still have to sand it but... I started wondering about getting more extreme with the contour --specifically, widening the contour the tail of the guitar so that the contour will cover roughly half of the body down there (the area from neck to bridge will remain pretty much untouched). That'll help take off some of the weight. I'm also hoping it'll approach the comfort level of my Melody Maker, which is very thin (33 mm!). But by leaving most of the guitar, and especially the neck/bridge region, at the original thickness, I won't sacrifice tone. (The MM is quite thin-sounding too) My main question --what do you think will happen in terms of comfort while playing the guitar? If the contour continues all the way to the tail, do you think the guitar will 'pull away' from me while playing? Any other risk involved with an extreme contour like this? As long as I'm at it: is there a way to calculate the balance between body weight and neck weight? Since I'm planning on taking a lot of weight off the body, I don't want to end up with (another) neck heavy guitar... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ddgman2001 Posted July 9, 2005 Report Share Posted July 9, 2005 Well, I took the surform to the back of my tele yesterday....I copied the contour from my strat onto the back and went at it....so far so good, only took about 15 minutes to get it roughly into shape. Still have to sand it but... I started wondering about getting more extreme with the contour --specifically, widening the contour the tail of the guitar so that the contour will cover roughly half of the body down there (the area from neck to bridge will remain pretty much untouched). That'll help take off some of the weight. I'm also hoping it'll approach the comfort level of my Melody Maker, which is very thin (33 mm!). But by leaving most of the guitar, and especially the neck/bridge region, at the original thickness, I won't sacrifice tone. (The MM is quite thin-sounding too) My main question --what do you think will happen in terms of comfort while playing the guitar? If the contour continues all the way to the tail, do you think the guitar will 'pull away' from me while playing? Any other risk involved with an extreme contour like this? As long as I'm at it: is there a way to calculate the balance between body weight and neck weight? Since I'm planning on taking a lot of weight off the body, I don't want to end up with (another) neck heavy guitar... ← Leave the neck and strings on. Remove a little at a time and test in a sitting and standing position. It's pretty easy to screw up volume/weight/balance calculations. The other way is much safer, just take your time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmrentis Posted July 9, 2005 Report Share Posted July 9, 2005 So you want the body to taper in thickness from the neck/horns area being the thickest and thin and taper down to the belly and bottom of the guitar. Sound interesting, how much thinner or taper will it be, make sure there is enough room for electronics/cavities. I don't have any ideas about sound or tone effects though, if you don't take too much off I don't think it will have any negative effects, I don't think it will get away from you, it would be a slight difference and shouldn't cause it to push away. Let us know if you decide to do it and take pics too. Good luck with your project! Jason Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickguard Posted July 9, 2005 Author Report Share Posted July 9, 2005 For the moment the contours is a little wider and little longer than a typical strat contour --it's on the upper bout, so no worries about conflicts with the electronics. Photos will come soon That's a good suggestion to try it with the neck on --although I'm going to assume that the missing electronics/pickups and missing bigsby will compensate for missing tuners...think I'll put the neck back on before I take anymore off (although I'll probably replace this neck anyway). I'll probably stop where it is now --I don't think it'll need to lose much more weight from there, since I'm going to do some routing under the pickguard in order to mount the varitone... Now I just have to find the right neck...I'm hoping this guitar turns into my main guitar.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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