Mini Guitar

[teddybear]

any resources?

which scale usually people made this guitar?

[low end fuzz]

long & macquade have a lil guitar;

my buddy brought it to the shop to look at it;

im not exact but i think the scale was 19'' and the fingerboard lined up to the last 15 frets or so of a 34" bass fb

they tell ppl at the store it cant be intonated but i'll see what he does to it, 12th fret seems to be spot on

so maybe there is something up with the rest of the spacing;

but im thinking of making one; it looks perect for a 3 year old (if he isnt already a fan of pete towsend)

[metalwarrior]

I have been looking into making a small guitar over the past few days. I have also been looking into intonation and various forms of nut compensation.

It seems that the shorter the scale length the more intonation trouble you will have playing chords in the open position. If you know how to make a compensated nut you should be able to get it to play in tune though.

The scale length for small guitars varies. You can still use a 25.5" scale by simply putting the bridge closer to the back of the body, like on a bass. If you are looking to reduce the overall length you could also consider making a headless neck. I have seen people put the tuners on the body end of the guitar. If you want examples of these try searching for "travel guitars".

If you want to make the guitar for a child you will need a smaller scale to accommodate their smaller hands. The problem with this is using a standard nut / bridge will still give you regular string spread which may be too wide. If you are able to make your own brigde you can use one of those rail pickups, rather than one with pole pieces, to get an even sound.

These are some random pics I've found so far:

Edited August 19, 2007 by metalwarrior

[teddybear]

fall in love after tried this :

about save scale for tune and intonation.

which scale i should choose?

[komodo]

I'm building two mini guitars right now. Both are 19" scale, based on a larger design of mine (sorta les paulish). I fell in love with that MiniMay as well and almost built one of those, but thought my own design would be better. I'll give one to my son and use the other for messing around in the shop. So far, one is all white limba, ebony FB, one pickup and a black pickguard. The other is a medium quilt top over mahogany, maple neck with ebony FB. I will also use this as a sort of test ground for staining and finishing. I'll try to put some pics up when i get further along.

[maikman]

how big are the bodies on these guitars usually? Itd be cool to do a nice prs kinda copy, the wood would definitely be cheaper

[thegarehanman]

I built a .5 scale strat about a year ago. The super thin neck and body were a bit of a challenge, but I never really had problems with intonation. I was using a home-made rosewood TOM style bridge with an acoustic bone saddle. If you have any questions, shoot me a pm.