Official Luthiers Forum!

I have a few questions I need this forums knowledge for. Hopefully these help myself or others when deciding to build a guitar. This will be my first build but I know someone who has the tools and is in the process of learning himself.

First question is regarding wood, my selection is swamp ash for the body. Should I use maple or mahogany for the neck? Is there a reason I don't often see mahogany mixed with other woods and maple paired up with ash?

I plan to use a 26.5" (24 fret) scale. Does the scale depend only on the length of the neck or does the bridge position change aswell?

Where can I get the measurements for fret placement?

How can I find or determine the widths for a 7-string neck? Is there a template?

I can't find a template for the body shape. Does anyone know where I can find a template for a schecter C-1 style body?

Will routing templates (sold on stew mac) for a 6-string floyd rose tremelo work for a 7-string floyd rose tremelo?


Thanks for your time, Anthony Pio

Anthony, welcome to OLF.
FWIW (I've never built a solid body electric), the Schecter C-1 looks like a nice design. The one I saw was a maple neck on a mahogany body (quilted maple cap). Both mahogany & maple are commonly used neck woods, so, you're choice I guess.
The neck looks like it joins the body at the 16th or 17th fret....typically you'd build it that way and position the bridge as dictated by scale length and compensation. (BTW I hope you meant to say 25.5" scale). There are a number of fret calculators out there ("wfret" comes to mind). Check out the sevenstring,org forum...I'm sure you'll find typical neck dimensions & other useful stuff. (My 7-string jazz archtop had a 2" nut). Stewmac can help you re the tremolo template (as well as some "build your own electric guitar" books). You could generate the C-1 shape on cadd if you have a good frontal image and the actual body dimensions.
Good luck!

_________________
Dave
Milton, ON

Hah I knew the question about the routing template was a wee bit uneducated.

I was thinking of sketching a template up in autocad, just wondering of there was a premade template for the body as well as the pickups/ electronics.

Thanks for your help

hi. i based my neck measurements around the ibanez universe - http://www.ibanez.com/ElectricGuitars/model-UV777 - the schecter 7s have the same nut & 24th fret widths, but scale is 26.25" or so on mine i think.
good luck!

if you play guitar, and know what string spacing you like at da nut, use that.
then get a bridge, or get dimensions from where you going to but it,
then draw it out on a big piece of paper, and make sure the pickup pole pieces line up too with da strings,
if they have pole pieces.
then the fretboard will be about an 1/8" from the outside strings.