curtisa

You could always laminate an extra piece onto the headstock offcut if you're worried about the length being too short after you've cut the scarf (same timber species or different for contrast) , or even use a headstock piece from a different cut of timber altogether and place the scarf cut as far up the blank as possible..

8 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

Your best bet is to do a 1:1 drawing of your neck on paper and work out where your joint will be, the angle of the joint and the length of the blank you will need.

Or do it mathematically.

Say you want a 14 degree back angle using a 25mm blank. To find the amount of extra length that will be added past your scarf joint just find the length of the red line:

sin 14deg = 25mm/unknown length, solved for the unknown length = 25mm/sin 14deg = 103mm.

If you want a neck that has 24.75" scale length (aka 628mm), just subtract the 103mm from the required length of the neck. So if you were shooting for a full 24 fret neck first work out your required neck length: 628 / 2 = 314mm [ie, distance from nut to 12th fret] plus 314 / 2 = 157mm [ie, distance from 12th fret to 24th] = 471mm. Call it 490mm to allow for some fretboard overhang at the end of the neck and for some human error while making your scarf cut.

So if you place your scarf cut 103mm back from 490mm you'll be able to work out how much extra you have to play with for the headstock once cut:

To work out how much of the headstock face you'll get after you flip the cut piece over, just do the trigonometry on the triangular horizontal length and subtract it from the 298mm back length above:

 tan 14deg = 25mm/unknown length, solved for the unknown length = 25mm/tan 14deg = 100mm.

Therefore headstock face length once cut and assembled = 298-100 = 198mm:

Better than 'radiusifiedinated' I suppose?

34 minutes ago, Bizman62 said:

That's why classical guitars don't have a compensated bridge.

Not at all. Classical guitars do have compensated saddles, it's just that the compensation applied tends to be an average lengthening of the overall scale length by an equal amount. 2-3mm extra is common. The amount of compensation deviation between each string is much smaller too, which is why a perpendicular saddle is more acceptable on a nylon-strung guitar. An independently compensated 3rd string is also not entirely unheard of either.

But again, the amount of compensation required because of loss of vibrating length at the absolute ends of the string due to stiffness is far outweighed by the compensation required to offset bending/sharpening of the string when depressed. Nylon-strung instruments are just less affected by this phenomena compared to steel-strung counterparts.

27 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

I was questioning why you would go through the trouble to have an angled headstock... generally more work... when there is seemingly zero benefit. 

Companies like Ibanez, Jackson, PRS etc are already tooled up to do angled headstocks. They don't have to change anything in the way of their production line to transition from non-locking to locking nuts. While there are a few notable deviations from their standard fare (the Ibanez JS has the Fender-esque flat stepback, but what Joe wants Joe gets?), they have their methods already well established in the chain of production.

There are still benefits to an angled headstock over a flat stepback - the headstock can be made from a different piece for strength or contrast, you can do interesting things with the transition between neck and headstock, the neck blank can be shorter etc. The whole scarf cut and glue-up process at that kind of level is largely automated, so the extra work over a Fender-style neck is probably trivial. Adding the necessary cuts to mount a lock nut is nothing more than a different bit of CNC code.

Locking nuts are installed on Fender necks with their standard flat stepdown headstock all the time. There's no back angle going on there.

If you mean, 'why not just have a flat extension to the neck with zero angle or stepdown behind the locknut to mount the tuners on?' , you still need some negative angle behind the nut to aid in tuning once the nut is clamped down. A string retainer bar behind the nut may be required where there isn't enough natural back angle as the strings pass over the clamping faces of the nut, otherwise the strings get pulled sharp as you tighten down the nut.

A headstock with zero angle behind the nut also invites buzzing at the nut and Floyd Rose style locking nuts are no different, whether they're clamped shut or not. If there's not enough downward pressure on the leading face of the nut slots the strings can get sitar-style open string buzz. You'll also notice that the clamping faces on a locking nut are also angled backwards. That's partly to get the strings pointing in the right direction as they head towards the tuners, but it's also to guarantee that there's downforce applied to the leading edges of the nut slots.

4 minutes ago, mistermikev said:

so while that's not really wide spread it could be a factor. 

Take the string retainer bar on your Jem off and try tuning it unlocked, then lock the nut down. It's no fun at all trying to guess how much tuning offset you need to dial into a doublelocking tremolo before the nut is locked, only to have to try and compensate for it at the fine tuners because everything has pulled sharp. Ask me how I know

3 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

Then again, there's headless guitars with a Floyd and that tells that the angle is not crucial.

Headless guitars fitted with any kind of nut, string clamp or zero fret still need that downward string pressure at the string landing point to prevent things like buzz. There will be that negative angle, whether it's visible or not.

That's not the primary reason compensation is applied, although it does contribute to the overall requirement to do so. The main reason is that depressing the string to the fret bends the string, thus raising the pitch. The compensation required to offset this bend/pitch rise is to make the string length slightly longer, so the saddle has to move further away from the nut.

That might depend a bit on what spread of scale lengths and string gauges you're planning to cater for. Thicker strings tuned low on long scale lengths will need more compensation than skinny strings tuned high over short scale lengths.

If in doubt just follow in the steps of others. A range of 10-12mm is generally as much as you can get from a Strat bridge and most of their derivatives, and is probably a good bracket to aim for.

5 hours ago, Dward13 said:

How far ahead and/or behind the actual scale length is needed as intonation adjustment"

The range of intonation adjustment should never ever ever everevereverever etc take you less than the scale length. Compensation is always, without exception, an increasing of string length. The saddle will only ever need to go more further away or less further away from the nut.

A guitar that wants to intonate by compensating less than the scale length is...well...broken

BBC IPlayer only works for UK residents, but there are some paint products floating around that claim to have similar "light sucking" qualities. I think one if them is called Black 3.0 or something (sounds like a Lynx deodorant)?

Dunno if they're particularly hard wearing, or if sealing them under a clearcoat might ruin the effect? But I agree, it would certainly be eye catching to (not) see

4 hours ago, nakedzen said:

Yeah that's why I'm thinking single vol/pu only.

Gotcha. I just saw the pencil outlines you'd added to the body and saw two pickups drawn on there. My comment was meant to be more general though - watch out for sneaky things like pickups that require extra depth routed for the mounting ears or the magnetic slugs poking out the back of the baseplate, or neck mounting screws being too long.

3 hours ago, nakedzen said:

Body is really thin, only 30mm or so.

I'm a fan of skinnier-than-usual guitars too, but I will say to take care with your planning when using such thin pieces for your body. When you get that thin you start limiting what you can get away with inside the electronics cavity. A right angle Switchcraft 3-way toggle switch for example is 22mm tall from the shoulder of the mounting post the the bottom of the switch frame, which sounds OK inside a 30mm body. But you lose some of that depth if you want to recess the back coverplate into the body (2-3mm?) plus the thickness of the front cavity wall where the switch collar pokes through (3-4mm?). That only leaves barely enough clearance inside the cavity for the switch to fit inside without bottoming out on the rear cover. You'd never get a blade-style switch or push-pull pots to fit inside either.

Good to have you here

58 minutes ago, RVA said:

Sorry. My PostImage links don't appear. If anyone can help me figure out how to link here, I would appreciate it. I hate to burden your server with uploads

The forum doesn't accept BBCode links, so you need to post the raw HTTP link instead. So your original link:

Quote

[url=https://postimg.cc/q6LBvhpR][img]https://i.postimg.cc/3WMk9m6g/PXL_20211018_022953573_copy_756x1008.jpg[/img][/url]

,,,needs to have all the [img] and [url] tags deleted and be abbreviated to:

Quote

https://i.postimg.cc/3WMk9m6g/PXL_20211018_022953573_copy_756x1008.jpg

If the forum software can resolve the link the image should display automatically:

Or you can just upload your images directly to your posts. Don't sweat the server overhead; we have that largely covered by the charitable nature of our members via Patreon.

10 minutes ago, Robert-Shetland said:

dont suppose you have any experience with coil tapped humbuckers, and if I would get the result i'm looking for?

Tapped humbuckers tend to have a sound that approximates that of a genuine single coil; they have singlecoil-ness for want of a better term. I have tapped humbucker options on most of my guitars and find them an excellent tonal expander to a plain humbucker-equipped instrument Treat them more as an additional colour to play with than a genuine substitute for a Strat or Tele and you can't go wrong.

24 minutes ago, Robert-Shetland said:

would it hurt anything to have both halves equal thickness?

No hard and fast rules to guitar making (other than perhaps tradition). It shouldn't 'hurt' anything to make a guitar out of two sandwiches of the same thickness of timber.

You could even look at it the other way around if you wanted and make an unusually thin guitar using a single layer of 36mm Ash. Provided you plan for the required depth of all the components (pickups, pots, switches, neck pocket etc) there's nothing saying you can't go thinner than the 'typical' thicknesses used by the big name manufacturers. I think one of our long time members @RestorationAD used to routinely make his guitars 32mm thick and claimed they could hold their own against anything made by Fender, Gibson etc. Some of his threads are pinned in the 'In Progress' section of the forum if you're looking for inspiration.

Mount the switch some kind of subframe and attach that to the inside of the cavity. That would also work for the Gibson-style switch as well.

This one?

https://www.gitarrebassbau.de/viewtopic.php?t=6

2 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

I've got a bandsaw capable and that slither I take off without other wise end up in the dust collector

But @Nicco is unsure whether he could do so, hence my suggestion to take on your idea and modify it slightly in such a way that he could avoid any uncertainty he might have regarding executing such a cut.

8 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

I didn't use a veneer but I just sliced 1/4" off to top of each piece (2 piece blank) and treated it as a it's own top and I hid the join with binding.

If you go that route the slice that you laminate the veneer to doesn't even need to come from the same piece of wood as the body. If the join is hidden with binding you could get away with using just about anything as the 'top', and save the worry of trying to accurately remove the top face of the body on the bandsaw.

15 hours ago, Nicco said:

If I was using a 5mm top cap, I'd just hog out a bunch of material from the body blank and then seal it up, but given I'm wanting to use a veneer, I'm not sure what my options are, if any?

How about laminating your veneer to a plate of 5mm-ish  blackwood, and using that to cap off the hollowed out blackwood body as if you were using an equivalent thickness top cap? If you have access to a decent bandsaw you could even slice off the blackwood cap from the same piece used for the body blank, and the join where the two pieces are married together again would be pretty unobtrusive. A similar technique is used to make bandsaw boxes, albeit on a much smaller scale.

As per my previous comment regarding the Babicz Telecaster bridge, you could shift the locking screws slightly to one side to allow you to get a wrench on to the bolt head without the strings being in the way.

Action adjustability is still a limitation. Shimming is fine as an option, but you have to have a stash of shim material handy to use in the first place, which a lot of people wouldn't necessarily. And removing material to get things lower is somewhat permanent and destructive too.

What about having your baseplate resting on a separate sub-assembly that can be raised and lowered using a pair of grub screws at the forward-most corners? At least that way you could get back some degree of coarse adjustability for the whole bridge assembly.

12 hours ago, ADFinlayson said:

The babicz tele bridge has a similar design in the way the saddles are locked down, bit of a PITA to adjust tbh. 

Loosening the saddle lock screws to adjust the intonation on the Babicz bridge doesn't take much time in comparison to the process of setting the intonation overall though. And once intonation is set you generally don't need to go back and fiddle with it again on a regular basis. The Babicz design is also well thought out in that they position the locking screw for each saddle slightly offset from the string path so you can get an allen wrench in to undo it without slackening off the string first. Can't do that on a Floyd Rose for example.

ABM's 3256 bridge has a similar sort of look. Hipshot also make replacement bridges for some models of Ibanez units that share similar features too.

Where do the strings lace through? The intonation lock screw would presumably get in the way of the thru-body string hole in certain positions?

Do you need to consider some way to adjust the action too?

6 hours ago, Dward13 said:

The idea being it would be beneficial in terms of sustain.

Admittedly it would be a tedious pain to adjust, but if it improves sound it might be worth it. (That’s my question to you)

Impossible to predict. I know a lot of people have opinions surrounding more mass at the bridge = better tone/sustain, but a lot of that tends to be subjective and really difficult to quantify.

6 hours ago, Dward13 said:

One related question: Is the angle made by the string passing over the bridge critical? 

What should that angle be?

In an acoustic guitar there is a correlation between string-to-saddle angle and the sound produced, but that has a lot to do with getting the top 'moving' in reponse to the motion of the string. Too shallow an angle and the sound tends to be quite thin and lifeless. Too steep an angle has a detrimental effect on the top of the guitar, as the amount of downward pressure exerted on the saddle can deform and/or damage it over time - it might sound absolutely stunning until the top collapses. A solid body electric guitar however probably doesn't share these traits and limitations so much and you're more free to experiment as you wish, but I'd probably recommend at least *some* downward angle (maybe 15 degrees???), if only to stop the string from sliding laterally across the break point of the saddle under normal playing or minimising any chances of poor contact with the saddle leading to weak string response.

I would point out that unless the string securing method somehow 'moves' with the intonation position of the saddle, the break angle will be different for each string depending on the intonation compensation position (think of a Strat bridge for example - the low E string might have a 45-ish degree angle behind the saddle whereas the high-E string might be 20-ish degrees). Another perspective to consider is that each string on a Floyd Rose pretty much passes through a 90 degree bend over the exact same distance. What that really means for a tonal comparison I have no idea, as the two bridges and how they're coupled to the body are completely different.

You might want to have a look through this thread from about a year ago, in particular this post where I attempted to compare the difference between top loaded strings and thru-body strings, thereby changing the saddle break angle. There are some A-B recordings attached and some rudimentary sustain comparisons. There might be something in the steepness of the saddle break angle, but I don't know that I'd call it a night-and-day difference. Make of it what you will

18 hours ago, avengers63 said:

After talking with them, I have two options: either a matching C/C in the bridge, or their El Rayo humbucker.

Are their suggested matches based on how they look together or how they sound together?

I guess you could look at it either way, but that's 100% something that will speak more to your personal tastes and the overall design goals of the build. If it were down to looks alone I'd swing towards 2x CCs. The El Rayo just looks like any other humbucker, whereas at least the CC has a sort of distinctive Art Nouveau edge to it that might unify the overall look if combined together as a pair.

2 hours ago, Macarel31 said:

this subject seems to be complicated. I find a post on this forum (subject When To Radius... in the forum inlay and finishing).

it appears that it's possible to use this kind of jig (with router) with inlay already installed on the fretboard but with "simple" and small shapes such as round. Everybody isn't agree when the inlays are big,  fine or have more complex shapes.

The thread you refer to is asking a different question - "Should I inlay before applying the radius or after?" The mention of a router in that context is related to people asking how to use the router to cut the inlay pockets if the fretboard is already curved with a radius, rather than how to apply the radius in the first place. 

2 hours ago, Bizman62 said:

That is because the inlay material can be much harder than wood which usually makes it more brittle. And it's thin, only about 1.5 mm or less. So if you have a large inlay that's 1.5 mm thick in the centre it may be only 0.5 mm at the edge after radiusing. Think about a 0.5 mm thin piece of porcelaine, it doesn't take much to break!

Same with complex shapes like vines. A thin and narrow piece can easily be torn off by the router bit.

Yes - the router is not the way to remove excess material from brittle or very fine inlay material, and in that respect the router jig is most certainly not the best tool to add a radius to a fretboard if it has been inlaid first. Sanding is still the most appropriate method.

I'd still suggest that a quality sanding block/beam is your best course of action here. IME the router radius jig tends to be a one-trick pony (and even then, only if the fretboard timber lends itself well to being machined in such a fashion), and you'd have to weigh up if the complexity of it in comparison to a radius block is worth the trade off to you. Early on I built such a jig for radiusing fretboards. It worked OK for material like plain maple or rosewood, but for anything more unforgiving like figured wood, or extremely dense or 'chippy' material, it made a complete mess of things. The surface finish coming off the jig also tended to be fairly rough, so I'd have to use the sanding radius block to clean up all the router marks, which immediately negated the purpose of the jig in the first place.

I'm a little late to this prehistoric party (aren't we all ) but I'm fascinated to see what territory this wanders through. My only knowledge of the Welsh crwth is via a long-forgotten book that was given to me by a family friend, 'The Art and Times of the Guitar' by Frederic V. Grunfeld. It only briefly mentions the crwth as being a descendant of the Greek cithara (kithara?), the name of which has an obvious etymological basis for the relatively modern word 'guitar '.

Completely unrelated side note - your avatar reminds me a lot of Tim Hunkin. As a kid with more than a passing interest in how stuff worked his 'Secret Life Of Machines' TV series was mandatory viewing at home growing up in the late 80s.

Carry on!

Even better! - we've got an updated version of the original tutorial here on the forums: