Crusader

I was in a guitar shop one day and they had on display a Fender neck that was cut down the centre (trussrod and everything) I was greatly inspired by this and thats the way I do mine (after a great deal of experimentation I have to add) I'm even thinking of doing it this way on my next ventures which will have Rosewood or Ebony fretboards. I figure I already know how to do it and it might even be better for sound as there would be a solid joint between the fretboard and neck Any comments?

Cut the necessary parts off the body so you end up with a straight-through neck- then add to it (what you would need) to make a Telecaster. You already have the headstock This way you wouldn't need to interfere with any working parts of the instrument The only problem I can see is gluing end-grain at the base but I don't think thats a huge issue

I rough-cut on a saw then make a jig and finish it with a router (and sanding of course)

I agree with above about single coils The best guitar I made so far is a Strat copy with an all maple neck and mahogany body. I was hoping it would look like a Strat and sound like a Les Paul but its still too bright. I've tried SC's and HB's in it and it seems to me if the guitar is bright then go with it. Trying to make it warmer via pickups makes the sound unbalanced (warm in some areas and bright in others) Also with humbuckers when playing clean its 'bright' - but under distortion its very 'dark' and rather muddy - a complete turnaround It may just be low-grade timber though and it depends what type of music you want to play. If you're not going from clean to distortion then its not an issue EDIT: Just wondering if you're going to have a solid maple neck or fretboard of some other timber - I would definately go with a rosewood fretboard

What about bleaching the darker timber to make it lighter? I don't know what they use but I know they do it in carpentry - cabinetmaking

Interesting replies The first comment I ever heard about this was something like "The fretboard doesn't affect the sound much except for..." - (and I can't remember what the rest was) So maybe it was about "attack" Very relevant. I really like a maple neck for playing (I can see the strings better) but not the sound so much. On my next guitar I'm considering a maple fretboard but I'm wondering if it would have more affect than a maple cap (I wouldn't put the two together though) Aiming for the Les Paul sound

Have to agree. I made an all maple guitar ONCE, and each guitar since has less and less maple Don't be discouraged though. Its a 'different' sound and not necessarily BAD. Its all about personal taste

How much does the timber used on a fretboard affect sound? In my experience it seems quite a lot, but I'd like to hear other people's opinions

I did a quick skip over other comments and I don't think anyone else mentioned this (Don't have time on my side tonight) I think the bridge is too close to the base of the guitar. Which makes an awkward position when playing on the high frets The Body/Neck join at the 12th fret would give a great deal of stabiliy but I think you could bring it back 3 or 4 frets and the neck would still be about the same length as a Les Paul The result would give you better playability on the high frets (esp in standing position) and the shape would look more balanced My humble opinion -

The first picture looks nice The second makes me crack a fat The rest make me realise the problem you have got Give it to me - Problem solved!! No but seriously (I don't have any experience with binding) but I would try to take it off and do a re-shape (It shouldn't change too much) (But then I do things that no-one else would ever do...believe me!) Let me explain, a picture paints a thousand words Between the pickup wells you can see the join on the left, But can you see the join on the right? What I mean is, don't rush things. Today you might have of an idea but think it would be impossible or take too long, but if you leave it a few days (go fishing or something) then come back to it you may realise that idea you had is the only way to go... That is a "rooly" nice lookin' piece of lumber and I hope it goes well for you

Yeah same here, everything I do is just a hobby. I couldn't imagine going into production and selling anything I make, unless I come-up with some fantastic new concept that I can patent. But predictably it seems that anything I think of has already been done... For example I never saw or heard of "fanned frets" when I built my multiscaled guitars... oh-yeah I never heard of that either! If only I had "Invented" these concepts 30 years ago! Yeah I bin drinkin' again and my ring sings stinky things

Good suggestions Yeah the action is just a little more than I would like, but it IS playable The main thing I want to be rid of is the bright sound. Its not just bright but its a screechy type of bright. Like I said before, a yappy dog...annoying If I went for the bass-guitar idea, the brightness may be advantageous The other thing of course is the tuning pegs. Considerations have been made towards filling the holes, re-shaping the head by adding to the sides and a veneer of Rosewood or Ebony (as Gibson do) Btw that was the fastest reply I've ever encountered on forums! Its currently right-on midnight here (with daylight saving) So its really only 11.00

All the same bits that I like! Looking over it again, I have considered something along those lines. But I'm thinking more-a-less turn them into bass guitars if I keep them "as-is" Another idea - I was going to chop the necks off and put on Mahogany necks with a regular scale and Rosewood fretboards (to steer away from such a "bright" sound) But I put so much work into them like the trussrod and radius and not-to-mention lacquer. With the red one I am especially surprised how good the intonation is, and thats the one I used the Boss tuner to place the frets! Oh yeah nearly forgot. The red one has a major blunder in the design. When you adjust the bridge as low as possible, the action is still quite high The jury is still out on "saving" these long-necked guitars I made

I'm pretty much in agreeance to the above. What I have done is; Get a piece of Melamine offcut out of the shed (preferably on MDF) Trace a good design in pencil (in my case a Stratocaster) then erase sections at a time and gradually re-shape it into something to your liking...or draw what you think you'd like then erase after Draw and erase with a smooth and controlled action pivoting from your wrist-joint. It can take many hours and I find I have to "walk away" and come back to it Or on the other hand you can do what I'm considering with my current chunk of Mahogany and go the Bo Diddley way as stated above! I've even wondered what kind of sound and sustain you would get from bolting a neck onto a tree-trunk LOL!

I take your comments as quite a compliment Wez, You have some great credentials! When you say not practical I'm thinking of things like the tuning pegs and the double-dots at E instead of the octave The tuning pegs so close together on this look okay because it just suits the whole "look" of the instrument, but it doesn't with a more conventional shaped body, and in any case it is difficult to tune The fretdots on this one were a failure becuase the Tasmanian Oak went nearly as dark as the Jarrah after spraying with lacquer. And as mentioned it is confusing when you want to play the octave, and after-all you may want to tune to a lower pitch so the "E" idea goes out the window anyway You're not wrong there. I virtually built these things from the ground-up and every step of the way was an absolute nightmare. Although I read as many books as I could find, they didn't have much useful information. And if they did I still put every theory to the test before going ahead (Being a tradesman a lot of things in books are common sense to me, like flat surface before gluing...those sort of things...) On the topic of reasearch, something I have still never found in a book is the pitch of notes. We know A=440, but what are all the rest of them? I take it for granted you use the same formula for working out fret spacings, except the inverse (When the string length is half, the pitch doubles) Now that IS interesting! Oh here we go, its nearly 3 o'clock again!

Good call but I didn't have a computer in 1996! Thankyou, I thought it was pretty good too! I have to confess though, I heard of similar ways of tilting the fretboard so its eaier to see, and my method was just a variation Good question, I'm glad you asked! For my normal scale-length guitars I just took the measurements staight off my SG For the long scale lengths I used 628.65mm (24 3/4") with Fret Factors You get Fret Factors by dividing the scale by the fret-to-bridge distance Then divide the new scale by the Fret Factors and you get your new fret-to-bridge lengths There are different ways of doing Fret Factors and btw the scale length you use is actually irrelevant, its just mathematics Yes, the mysterious Gibson 24 3/4 scale! Its a hot topic which I'd rather leave for another day right now but here's food for thought - On my SG the 12th fret is exactly half of 24 9/16" So therefore it should be 24 9/16" But as it is said, "the true scale is CLOSER to 24 9/16" So if its not 24 9/16 what is it?

I'll try to answer all your questions. This is probably stuff I should have said from the begginning, but better late than never! Before getting started on these guitars, I hunted around libraries and universities and read heaps of books on guitar-making. They were quite helpful but I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for on fret spacing, so I figured it out for myself It occured to me that the Nut to 1st fret distance must be a certain percentage of the scale. And each fret distance after would follow the same pattern So I sat down with a calculator and through trial-and-error found a number that after doing 12 calculations you get half the original distance The number is 5.61257% But later-on I finally found a book that gave me the magic number - 1.05946309436 I couldn't understand why my number wasn't right but after a few calculations I realised its kind-of the inverse of 1.05946309436 My number gives you the nut-to-fret or fret-to-fret distance and the other gives you the fret-to-bridge distance The number I had is actually like the 1/18th rule After obtaining that information I tried to apply the formula to the guitars I owned and found that it worked on the Strat but not on the SG I measured the frets with a steel rule and a magnifying glass and did it several times to be sure I transferred the scales onto a length of Maple and compared them to other guitars and it was usually spot-on I couldn't work out the Gibson scale though. I tried numerous ways of applying the usual formula but nothing worked. This was a problem because I wanted to make a guitar two frets longer than normal scale and be sure the intonation was right. I contemplated various methods like Fret Factors and as mentioned, using a tuner. I can't remember which method I ended up using but for eg, the M4 frets closely match the numbers I wrote down (from using a tuner) and it has quite good intonation I checked the intonation on my guitars very extensively and found the Strat was good on the 1st string but not the 6th. My Gibson was the other way round. It was good on the 6th string but not on the 1st. So my reason for different scales on the same guitar was for better intonation, Gibson on the 6th string side and Fender on the 1st (not the actual scale but the "formula" behind it) I realised if I worked out both sides on the same scale the frets would spread-out wider on the 6th string side. But I thought it would look weird, be harder to play and it would need more compensation on the bridge. I actually aimed to have no compensation at the bridge on some guitars The tuning pegs all close together reduces the amount of string beyond the nut and they don't go out of tune so easily - No need for a locking nut! Another concept I had with the "D" guitars. Put the double fret-dots at "E" not the 12th fret. So you have them at the second and fourteenth. But it gets confusing if you're playing open-octave stuff (If you know what I mean) I designed these guitars to tune down to D and maintain the same string tension, no problem there. What I don't like about them is the wider fret spacings are a bit of a stretch, they seem a bit heavy and I can't get a nice close action. Having good access to higher frets on a baritone makes a VERY long neck. And after all this I discovered I don't really like playing in drop-tunings However - I like the idea of combining bass guitar with guitar. Where you wouldn't be playing open chords etc One thing I tried is, instead of tuning at the 5th fret, tune at the 7th fret (like a violin) This is the same as tuning your E down to D but doing it on all strings. It tunes almost down to a bass guitar and as high as a normal guitar. The only trouble is you would have to completely change your playing style and there are things that are just impossible (like 6-string chords) Well I better go and by the way I really am from another planet (shsh, don't tell anyone) lol But I think its concepts like mine that break ground and after-all I don't see how I'm weirder than other people. The Novak guitars with the fanned frets look exactly like what I had in mind for my next guitar. And TrueTemperement.com - Now thats what I call "from another planet" I remember seeing Hamers (or Hoffners?) having a wiggle in the frets on the B or G string many years ago. I really don't see the point of wiggly frets when you can just use a compensated nut...? On one or two of my guitars the angle on the frets is so subtle I even have to ask "why bother?" You can get good intonation with a bit of fretwork. But thats the thing, if I get this right you won't need to! Oh thats right - I gotta go, Its nearly 3am again

I've just realised I'm probably on the wrong sub-forum but if I talk about concepts and tone, does that qualify for being here? Here's the guitar I call the MH1 As you can see it has too much Maple and sounds like a yappy dog. (There is a previous guitar I call the M1 and is made completely out of Maple but no piccies yet) 100% Maple - Yikes! The main timber on the MH1 is African Mahoganny which was a big step in the right direction This is my first 27 fret guitar and my first attempt at multiscaling. It has a scale length of about 703mm on the 6th string side which is meant to be two frets longer than the Gibson 24 3/4" . I've lost details but the 1st string side is just a scale length I chose so the frets spacings are slightly longer. I thought it would look better than if they "fanned" inwards When making this I made a huge blunder and put the fret spacings along the edge of the fretboard instead of in-line with the strings. With angled frets, the intonation is a bit sad African Mahogany back and trussrod filler-piece Notice the volume+input cavity is unfinished. I am capable of great feats of craftsmanship in difficult areas but a simple thing like this is too much for me! A closer look at the fretboard shows how the frets are slightly fanned - in the opposite direction to other guitars I've seen This one is my 4th attempt at a straight-through Maple neck so I call it the M4 (The M2 and M3, along with the J2 J3 and J4 died during childbirth - RIP) It has a Brazillian Mahogany body and no Maple cap but the Maple neck is still too much and sounds like a different breed of yappy dog than the MH1 It also has 27 angled frets using a Gibson-based scale on the sixth string and regular on the first. Scales are 704.5mm LHS and 702mm RHS Looking at my noted, apparently I chose the LHS fret positions with my Boss ME30 Tuner (Can't remember if I actually did or not though) In any case I've been currently scutinising the intonation and so far it seems to be quite good The top ear was supposed to join further up the neck but during construction things changed. It ended-up level with the lower ear and I decided to make the neck join the same as my '61 Re-Issue SG Les Paul. The SG-style chamfered edges were also a last minute decision and while doing this I discovered how nice Braz Mahoganny is to carve. The colour is also the same as the SG which took hours and hours of mixing different stains I wanted a longer head on this guitar but still kept the pegs close together. The result looks really dumb, like a "Really surprised Albino" You can see I use the 'Bullet' style trussrod nut like a Fender but combined with an angled headstock like a Gibson The fill-in around the trussrod nut is Jarrah and the back of neck filler piece and fretdots are too (All those little bits of Jarrah... Mmm is that why it don't sound no good?) Here's a good look at those Gotoh's all bunched-up like they're mating or something - a little too hard to tune though I have to say I'm not too keen on these long-scales (Too heavy, hard to play and the long necks aren't stable enough to get a nice close action) So I made two regular guitars. The first one is exactly like the MH1 and the other is a Strat copy I'll be back

Hi I've enjoyed reading and expressing opinions on this forum so far and would like to show some of the guitars I've made The first one here was inspired by seeing Dave Hill's (of Slade) guitar "The Super Yob" It made me realise a guitar doesn't have to be the usual shape (this was a very long time ago btw) Its made of Western Australian Jarrah. I thought I might 'discover' a fantastic new tone-wood but it sounds like an "arking" crow I made this to tune down to D and is two frets longer than the Fender scale which is 25 1/2 inches or 647.7mm. This is 727mm It has the tuning pegs as close together as possible to eliminate the need for a locking nut As mentioned it doesn't sound the best (A bit like too much Maple) but has heaps of sustain and some good tonal qualities due to the longer scale length...? It nearly went on the fire-heap a few years ago but I decided to keep it for some reason... If you look closely there is a screw in the back which gains access to the end of the trussrod Its wedge-shaped so you can see the fretboard more easily, which works and also makes it comfortable to play More to come soon

I won't have no pics till I figure out this photobucket stuff but - I like the first post's shape, it's very similar to mine and I like 3-a-side tuning pegs. Six-a-side is such a hit-and miss affair when tuning And plus 3-a-side looks better I love the Les Paul shape and I'm buying another one soon, but if building another gittar I have to put forward the argument, why build something you can buy? Don't stuff-around making something you can buy off-the-shelf If you're going to build something then make it different! Everything I say has to be taken with a pinch of salt and I take it all back if it offends anyone and btw see sig

Do you want to match the sound of a Strat or improve upon it? - "Improving" of course is purely subjective Most Fender Statocasters are built of 'Alder' as far as I know and if you want to go with another type of timber then you have to do your research If you can find little info on 'Peach' then it seems to me you are venturing into "unknown waters" My first two guitars were made from Jarrah (from WA Australia) which I found the hard way is not a good 'tone-wood' But apparently there are good Tone-woods that come from the Goldfields area of WA Australia - as long as they've been dried-out the appropriate way (long story, look it up) Having said that, the best guitar I made from Jarrah has a 3-piece, straight-through neck and has awesome sustain

You speak-a my language I've got a book-matched pair of flamed maple. It looks quite nice but after doing a tap-and-listen test, I'm not sure its the best as far as sound is concerned, it seems to come out with a double, confused sound

I've just read each post in detail and I feel a bit stupid - He wants to tune down to C Btw its nearly midnight and its about 80 degrees in here (30 degrees celsius) The window is wide open and there's no breeze, It's like Florida in July! Anyway I hope my comments have been of some use to those who read this forum ... and if you want to drop-tune then thicker guage strings and longer scale is definately the go

I have to laugh and I'm not surprised, I'm not much of a conversationalist! What I'm saying is much the same as what Wez just said Although the pu won't be under the 1/4 node of the longer scale, it will still be the same distance from the bridge, which I believe is more important, because - I have done lots and lots of experiments with bridge and middle pickups on the guitars I've made. Some are about 27 - 28 inches long and two are the same as the Gibson 24 3/4 scale (I haven't experimented with neck pickups because all the guitars I've made have 25 or 27 frets) Bridge humbuckers are usually positioned so the centre is at 1/16 of the scale length. But if you do this with a long scale guitar it sounds too mellow, half like a middle pickup With single-coils I wanted to get that elusive Strat bridge-and-middle sound. No matter what scale guitar I tried it on, I found its best to stick to the same positions as on a Strat I am predicting it will be the same for neck pickups -