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I am about roughly a month away from completing my second guitar/cittern build (waiting for the FP to "set"), and would like to ask a question about the neck.

I have taken the width at the nut down to the barest minimum width, 44mm, and the thickness of the neck shaft at the 1st fret is about 24.8mm.

Despite having installed carbon fibre rods into the neck, I am still shooting for a 12 string neck shaft thickness, obviously because of the string tension. It STILL feels slightly uncomfortable and too wide when held in the playing position, and wanted to ask how slim I can get the shaft.

GAHG!! I forgot to say that it's a five course instrument, 630mm scale length.

Sam,

I think you may be on the thick side there. On Bealtine the neck was 21mm at the first fret (from middle of the fretboard to the back of the neck) with a 46mm wide nut. The string tension will be set (and controlled) by the string gauges you choose to put on but you don't need lots of tension for the ten strings to make a loud (and beautiful) sound. You can quite easily get to 200lb or less string tension in total.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

24.8 .. so almost an inch .. I work necks in inches, so you wil have to convert ... thickness at the nut can vary from about .800 to .860 on mine, and then as the neck tapers wider to the body, I add anywhere form .060 to .100 to that number, depending on what the client wants. On consignment gutiars, I shoot for .820 to .830 on C shapes, .850 to .860 on soft V's, and then add about .07/08 to that to get the thicker/wider end.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

is your stated thickness the neck/fb combined, or neck alone. either way it seems a bit thick. i'll take a relevant measurement today and get back to you.

Fantastic. I'll get carving again. Thanks guys!!

Dave, I ordered some strings from D'addario today as per advice you gave a while ago. I'm going for the 188lb tension first, to see how things shape up

Michael;

My measurements were from the centre of the radiused fretboard to the back of the neck shaft.

FYI - my numbers are the full neck/FB combo. I find anything else pretty meaningless, as you need to look at the whole picture.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"