1 7/16" Guitar Body Too Thin?

[Timius]

What started out as a practice guitar body that I'm making out of 4 laminated pieces of Ash is coming along nicely. Just finished band sawing out the shape. Had to plane a the front down a bit. It left me with a guitar body that is 1 7/16 inches thick.

Originally my intent was to use it as a "practice body" to route, band saw, go through the process, etc.

It is turning out nice enough that I was thinking of adding a neck to it and going the whole nine-yards.

So, is 1 7/16 too thin for the guitar to be routed (neck socket, pickups) and turned into a hardtail strat-type finished project?

I really don't want to laminate another piece of wood to the body.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,

Tim

[RGGR]

http://www.blackmachine.net/ Edited February 6, 2007 by RGGR

[Daniel Sorbera]

A while back I built a guitar that was an inch thick. It was neck through, with a hardtail bridge and I didn't run into any problems because it was so thin. So I say go for it.

[Timius]

Great! Thanks for the info!

Those black machine guitars are THIN! The are also very cool looking.

Thanks!

[Canuck Brian]

My 8 is actually that thick and it's a bolt on.

[Timius]

My 8 is actually that thick and it's a bolt on.

Is there anything to watch out for in terms of neck pocket thickness?

This go around I am putting a pre made neck on the body (temporarily). It has a standard Fender strat bolt neck shape.

Also, do you use any neck angle with your 8's or do you leave it flat?

Thanks!

[cherokee6]

It's certainly thick enough for an SG.

[erikbojerik]

If you go with both a trem and a typical strat pickguard (with the pickups mounted to the guard), you may run into issues. They may be so close that the trem springs hit the bottoms of the pickups, i.e when you rout for the pickups, you may punch through into the rout for the trem springs. So you'd need to pick one or the other.

If you choose to mount the pickups to the wood with a trem and avoid this, with the pickups sitting high you may need a higher bridge.

Either way, you'll need to rout your neck pocket depth to match everything else.

Edited February 6, 2007 by erikbojerik

[another doug]

Also, be careful about the switch. I have had some 5-way switches that may not fit in a body that thin (I may be wrong, since I don't have one on me), but others have a much slimmer profile.