Official Luthiers Forum!

Hey there guitar builders.

I'm a guitar player, and not officially a builder..yet. I got a job in a wood shop and tonight that it would be the perfect opportunity to build a guitar that fits my body and hands (I'm 6'4" 240 lbs and have large hands...people always say that my guitars look like ukuleles )

I designed a guitar and was meticulous about the measurements. I made the neck 2" wide, and gave it a 28 inch scale and a large body.

I transferred my measurements and drew the guitar onto a sheet of plywood, then cut it and sanded it out, to see how the guitar would feel and I'm very excited and proud of how it's turning out.

My mother gave me a big mahogany plank, so the body material is covered. I am doing a neck through design and will most likely use maple for the neck.

A couple questions:

Could I use mahogany for the neck too?
How do I choose the angle of my head stock?
How do I MAKE the angle of my head stock?
How do I know where to put my tuning pegs?

Thanks in advance.

Steve Miller

Oh boy.....

Yes you can use mahogany for the neck, its one of the most commonly used woods.

I dont know exactly how you choose, headstock angles vary from about 10 degrees to 17 degrees, I do not recommend 17 degrees, I mysely usually have 11 or 12 degrees of angle.

You either draw it out and cut it, or you scarf joint the wood.

Measure another guitar and see how far apart they are spaced in, out, and away from eachother.

you could use maple AND mahogany for the neck if you did a laminated neck.

I think 14 degrees is a popular angle for the headstock

I think scarf joints are considered stronger than cutting the angle out of a piece of solid wood, because cutting the headstock at an angle means the neck under the fret board is long grain wood while the wood at the head is short grain wood once you cut across the grain to achieve the angle. A laminated face plate or back strap help with that.

Your tuning peg placement will depend on the shape of your headstock and the string path past the nut. You don't want the string to contact any other tuning peg besides the one that it's connected to. A lot of electric's with tremolo's have a straight string path from the nut to the tuning machine, while a guitar like a Les Paul has the string turn at an angle from the nut to the peg. So make sure your strings won't hit any other pegs, make sure the machines don't hit each other on the back of the headstock and make sure that your tuning button is far enough off the side of your headstock to make it easy to turn. If I were you I would do a full size drawing of your strings from the bridge all the way along the length of your neck, over the nut and to the tuning pegs. It's a lot easier to fix a drawing than it is to fix a headstock that doesn't work.

I'm guessing you'll have a lot more questions. One question I have is you say your neck is 2", but don't say whether that's at the nut or the body joint. Have you figured out what hardware you are using for a bridge or considered what pickups you're going to use? Pickups have a few different choices for pole locations but you want to make sure your strings are passing over the appropriate spots on them or you can end up with lower output I think. Do you have your fret board radius figured out? Do you need a neck angle at the body?

I recommend not doing a neck through on your first build. I tried a neck through on my 1st and it made the whole building process MUCH more difficult (being my first guitar) . You will have a cleaner build and fewer headaches if you simplify it a little. Anyhow, good luck with your first build! You came to the right place to ask questions!

I like 12 degrees for a headstock.
You can cut it directly out of a large piece of wood, or scarf the neck joint.
You can use any hardwood for the neck, as long as it's stable. Mahogany is a good choice.
Neckthroughs are awesome, it eliminates fitting either a bolt neck pocket or a mortise/tenon setup. Either way, less fitting and shaping. Just glue the wings on!

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Be sure you understand how the neck to body geometry relates to string height, pickups, bridge, and all that fun stuff.

Kevin Looker

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

Wow, this forum is quite legit! I'm very pleased with the layout, and all of the features. The members are very friendly, to boot!!

**So, I'm curious as to the relationship of the neck to body...the angle there....what will I need to know???

**Also, am I best off doing a scarf joint and just cutting it to the angle I decide (say, 14*). The scarf joint is made by cutting the angle, then reversing the head stock, right?

I'm PRETTY sure I am set on doing a neck through, though I know that finishing it will be a lot more of a pain in the nards than doing a bolt on neck. I just can't see spending all this time and effort on making something NOT the way I want it.

**What is the relationship of the width of the neck at the body, vs at the nut??

I'll keep the questions coming. I'm not quite ready to start the actual build, so I'm stock piling knowledge in order to go at this with enough info to do it right!

**Any books that you can recommend? The one they had at Barnes and Noble was not at all what I want...it was like projects and not, "how to build from scratch"

**So with a wider neck, how will I find a bridge saddle that will fit the different width?

Here are some pictures of the design and size. I was fairly meticulous about the measurements, but this mock up is not perfect. I just wanted to see how the size felt, and I'm feeling pretty excited about the size and I'm proud of the design.

THE PICS WON'T UPLOAD, so I'll figure that out and get back to ya'll.

The best way to do it is to get some large format paper and draw it all out. Do a top and side view. start with your nut width, scale and bridge spacing and lay everything up around that. Work out your hardware and add that to the plan and it should show you what body angles and neck width you need. The more detailed you can get the plan the easier the rest will be. Look at some plans on the web and it will give you some ideas on what it should look like.

Your best bet for books is likely Amazon.
Here's some, all geared towards scratch building:

http://www.amazon.com/Building-Electric ... pd_sim_b_2
An interesting read by Martin Koch, gives a very good overview of the design and implentation process.

http://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Own-Ele ... d+a+guitar

An excellent book which I found helpful. Has tips on making set necks and carve tops as well as bolt necks.


And my favorite:
http://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Electri ... r+and+bass

An excellent book covering the design and implementation of both a bolt neck guitar AND a neckthrough bass, which you can apply the techniques directly to your guitar!


Getting these three books will get you up and running extremely fast.

_________________
Old growth, shmold growth!

Hi Steve,

You've already given information that pertains to answering these questions.

The Scale Length - 28" = distance from nut (fretboard side) to saddle (1st string)
Width of neck at nut- 2" - The neck taper mirrors the angle of the string spacing at the nut to the string spacing at the bridge. (usually @ .125 is allowance on either side of strings for neck width)

Drawing out from the string spacing at nut to the string spacing at the bridge and allowing 1/8" on either side of strings will show you the neck taper.

Drawing out the location of the bridge on the body you can then determine where the neck meets the body ( by known scale length) and know the answer to your first question; "What is the relationship of the width of the neck at the body, vs at the nut??"

Should you decide to use a non-standard bridge for a custom string spread (as you have with the nut/string spacing) then I'm not sure where you will find one and inclined to say you will need to make one or contact somebody that may.

Another consideration- That is a long scale so have you considered string tension?

IMO - for note of interest...I can take a wonderful neck and a crap body and have a great playing guitar. I can take a beautiful body with a crap neck and have a crap guitar that I can't play.
Scale length, string gauges, string spreads, fretboard radius, frets, nuts, bridges....I would personally put knowing exactly what I needed to know about these as priorities.

Should you use a 2" nut combined with a standard electric guitar bridge (be sure to note the string spacing and radius as they're not all the same) and draw that out you'll be able to see that the
taper does effect the string spread length of fretboard, where it effects it most (lower frets-closest to nut) and maybe determing if that is what you want. ( a standard bridge may not give you the string spread you'd like the higher register to have.)

Hope some of this may help you.

That's a good suggestion, you absolutely need to be working from a plan on a custom design. The best way is to use drawing software to create the plan electronically. Your hand drafting technique has to be pretty good to get drawings accurate enough to be able to measure things like string height above the body or the neck angle for a particular bridge height off the drawing.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

Another consideration for increasing the string spread is to see how the strings lay over the pickup poles.
The strings should be centered over the poles. If the spread is too great, you could consider using rail-type pickups.
Good luck with your build, post pictures, and ask for advice.

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