Questions

[Lavidicus]

Hi, I've got a question about the gotoh stop tail piece and tune-o-matic bridge.

Should I be worried that my hardware is contoured for a curved-top guitar if I have a flat-top guitar?

Also, I kept my body at 50mm thick. Will I have problems with neck mounting if I'm using a stratocaster neck, like, am I going to have to cut the back of the body out so that the neck and body make the required thickness without changing the neck position and still maintaining the body thickness? or do I just use do it as per usual, but have a longer distance from the mount plate to the neck?

and and and, any tips on how to get a perfectly straight neck cavity?

[killemall8]

to answer your first question, it is fine that it is raidused and your top isnt. it is radiused to match a radius on your fretboard.

[brian d]

1) no problem with a TOM bridge on a flat topped body - the bridge and tailpiece are only held in by the posts, nothing else touches the body anyway.

2) The thickness of your body shouldn't be a problem as long as your neck screws are long enough. If not you can a. get longer screws, or b. thin down the back of the guitar (I wouldn't cut it, just thin it out something like this warmoth contoured heel ) or c. countersink the screws as much as you need to and use neck screw ferrules instead of a plate. c. will give you the option of carving a comfortable shape for the heel, which you may want so that it won't be too bulky with that thickness body.

3)For an accurate neck pocket look at Koch neck pocket or Myka neck pocket jig.

Keep in mind that as you are using a Tune-O-Matic bridge, you'll probably need to cut the neck pocket with an angle. Make sure you draw out the plan full size to see what angle you'll need for the height you want of the fretboard above the body.

Good luck,

Brian.

[Lavidicus]

woah, good point there brian. thanks. I read that myka neck pocket jig page, and it says he uses a 3° angle. I've been looking at my brothers les paul and I'm thinking I'll need something similar.

I never had plans to begin with, by the way. From day one I've been committing everything to memory or improvising and to tell the truth, it really hasn't phased me.

in construction, I'm hoping to have essentially a flat-top les paul, but not a les paul shape, and i'm using a strat neck for it so I'll probably do like that warmoth, only the contour of the heel won't go into the mount area, so it'll contour back into the main body.

I'll bust out the ruler when I get back from work tonight and give you some measurements, then use that cos/sin/tan bullshit if I still remember it with the 3° factor to find out what measurement i need etc.

thanks guys.

[jaycee]

3)For an accurate neck pocket look at Koch neck pocket or Myka neck pocket jig.

Brian.

I used the Koch way of routing my neck pocket, and at the bottom of the body I taped a paper measuring tape onto the center line, with the 100mm ( 4" ) mark on the line. This enablled me to make sure that the two rails were the exact distance from the centre giving me a perfectly linned up neck pocket, it worked a treat,

[Lavidicus]

so am I aiming for 3° as the myka guy did? I'm assuming he used a tune-o-matic too?

[Lavidicus]

If I have a gotoh stoptail, can i completely leave out the tune-o-matic? I really can't be arsed given my resources.