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Hi everyone, this is my first post. I'd better start by saying that I'm not a luthier, and this one is kind of peripheral to this forum. I figured this was the best place to get advice.

A couple of years ago, I bought a Martin tiple neck on eBay for pennies. When I say 'neck', that's absolutely literal. The neck had been removed from the body of the instrument by running a bandsaw vertically between the two at their junction. The heel is in place but ahead of that there's a vertical cut straight through fingerboard, neck and block. But it's an absolutely beautiful piece of work, likely from a 30s instrument, and I don't want to destroy it.

I do a fair bit of building-type woodwork, I know some acoustic theory and I've built some experimental instruments, including a very good washtub bass design with a ported resonator. I don't think I can build a tiple body from scratch, but I could construct a solid (electric) body and attach the neck. I could secure the neck to the body with screws, or some other fastening, and come up with a tele-style bridge.

This is a salvage job rather than proper luthiery. My present inclination is to drill a hole up the middle of the neck, line it up with a hole in the body, and join them with a brass rod, using a couple of large screws driven diagonally through the heel to hold the assembly in place. Does anyone have any better suggestions?

BTW, I'm aware of Ian Schneller's ace electric tiple, before anyone points me that way.

Best, NP

Without seeing a picture of the neck it is pretty hard to comment on how to attach it to a body. The GAL has two sets of tiple plans include a 1937 Martin - I would suggest getting those even if you aren't going to build the body - it will give you lots of information about scale length, neck angle, etc.

As I understand it a Martin tiple (at least) is strung in four courses of either two or three strings - from the pictures I've seen they appear to be ball ends so they are probably steel. To make an electric tiple you'll need to make a bridge of some sort and to come up with a pickup or two of the right string spacing (and which will work with the 3 string course).

Sounds like an interesting project