Just double checking with the neck scale length--this seems too easy..

This is my first build...ever, and I just want to make sure that I'm not overthinking (or underthinking) this. From everything that I'm seeing from other people, apparently the scale length is supposed to be tricky...and from what I can tell, I think my guitar is pretty straight forward...but I really want to make sure. It's supposed to be a 24.75" scale...and if I put the neck all the way into the pre-routed neckhole, it seems right on the money. But can I get some experienced eye confirmation?
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And as a follow up question....can anybody give me any reason to NOT contour this into the body?

Attachment 37790

here's a picture of the 12th fret with a label...Attachment 37791

Seems okay, where are your saddles in the bridge. Are they forward or middle?

I am definitely a fan of contouring neck to body. Here’s a strat project that have on the table at present.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...169cb2a18f.jpg

It looks like you’ve coloured the neck already though? It will just mean more finishing work for you if you do go the contour route.
Build looks wonderful, great job!


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I don't mind refinishing it, since it's only stained at this point. This contour as is, is driving me nuts, though! How did you go about doing yours? it looks fantastic!
The saddles (that are in the bridge) I had all the way forward. It's a Tune-O-Matic style bridge

Quote:

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Originally Posted by marcianotmarsha

I don't mind refinishing it, since it's only stained at this point. This contour as is, is driving me nuts, though! How did you go about doing yours? it looks fantastic!
The saddles (that are in the bridge) I had all the way forward. It's a Tune-O-Matic style bridge

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All good, if you are all forward then that should give you some reasonable adjustment at intonation.

For my contour I had a good idea of what I wanted.
I rounded the lower corner first then mounted the neck and traced that profile on to the neck heel.

Then I marked out the angle from top to bottom cutaway and free handed a curve between the two horns. The angle got roughed out with a small angle grinder and 80 grit flap disc. Refining was a combination of small Japanese rasps and a curved stewmac scraper. Once I was happy with that I used the rasps and round dowel sanding cauls to reshape the heel to suit.


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Quote:

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Originally Posted by FrankenWashie

All good, if you are all forward then that should give you some reasonable adjustment at intonation.

For my contour I had a good idea of what I wanted.
I rounded the lower corner first then mounted the neck and traced that profile on to the neck heel.

Then I marked out the angle from top to bottom cutaway and free handed a curve between the two horns. The angle got roughed out with a small angle grinder and 80 grit flap disc. Refining was a combination of small Japanese rasps and a curved stewmac scraper. Once I was happy with that I used the rasps and round dowel sanding cauls to reshape the heel to suit.


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Thanks! I don't have any of those tools....so, I marked out the curvature that I needed to follow from the body and kindof eyeballed it (and put it into the body and wrapped my fingers around it to see how it looked and felt for getting up to those frets after the 20th or so), then chiseled out the shape and sanded down.
My boyfriend and I watch a lot of luthier videos, so, I was semi-confident in being able to do this. (course they always seem to make things look so very easy.) I figured if anything, I would run to the local hardware store and pick up a rotary tool if I needed to.
Attachment 37794 Attachment 37795

Quote:

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Originally Posted by marcianotmarsha

Thanks! I don't have any of those tools....so, I marked out the curvature that I needed to follow from the body and kindof eyeballed it (and put it into the body and wrapped my fingers around it to see how it looked and felt for getting up to those frets after the 20th or so), then chiseled out the shape and sanded down.
My boyfriend and I watch a lot of luthier videos, so, I was semi-confident in being able to do this. (course they always seem to make things look so very easy.) I figured if anything, I would run to the local hardware store and pick up a rotary tool if I needed to.
Attachment 37794 Attachment 37795

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That’s a great effort with the tools you have.
I like doing this as an aesthetic thing, but the access advantage and the better feel under hand is worth the effort. Nice job, you work far quicker than the FrankenLab!


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Nice work, and great burst!

The only thing I'd comment on is I wouldn't have stained the heel where it sits inside the pocket. It may not be a problem, but I prefer contact points to be bare timber when gluing.

If you decide to sand off the stain, just be careful to keep the sanding block flat and square with the heel so you don't affect the neck angle or overall fit.

To what extent will a spirit based stain affect glue adhesion I wonder? Varnishes, oils, absolutely, oil based stains, for sure, they are bound to compromise glue strength, but with a spirit stain that just distributes microscopic dye into the wood and evaporates then I wonder. But there are so many stain types and so many adhesives that any attempt to generalise is futile. Even if Dirtystains red dye was fine Dirtystains blue might not be, and by the time you've done tests to be sure...

I would scrape a heel with a Stanley knife blade rather than sanding, I think I'd do better at keeping it flat like that.

A couple of points to note when checking scale length.

1) You really want to use a solid, not a flexible rule, and certainly don't use the very end of a flexible rule as the end metal 'hook' is just riveted on in roughly the right position and can move about a lot. So its very easy to be ±1mm out, or even ± 2mm out if it's a well used rule and the rivets have elongated their fixing holes. If you have to use a flexible rule, them don't use the end, but another marker along the rule as the start point. I normally use the 1" or 10cm position (depending on my units of measurement) to make any offset calcs easy.

2) Use the top/treble E nut slot to top/treble E saddle to measure the overall length, especially with a tune-o-matic style bridge which is almost always installed at a slight angle, so the low E is furthest away from the nut. The top E will always have the shortest overall length once its intonated, which will normally end up about 1-1.5mm longer than the nominal scale length. So it's normal to just check for the high E string position.

If you are using pickup rings, rather than thinking of mounting the pickups direct to the body, then the end of the fretboard will need to be moved back very slightly from the edge of the pickup rout so that the edge of the ring can just sit on the body, otherwise you'll get a visible gap line between the ring and the front of the rout.

It's normal for the intonation screws on the ABR-1 tune-o-matic style bridge to face forwards towards the pickups. The bridge can be installed either way round, but with the screws facing backwards, as they sit high up, the strings can catch them on the way down to the stop tail piece, and you don't want that. The string proximity to the screw also makes them quite hard to access. You can raise the stop tail piece height to stop that happening, but then you reduce the string break angle over the saddles, and you don't want that too shallow. So the screws are normally set facing the pickups. Otherwise the bridge works just as well either way round.

You can always easily turn the saddles round on an ABR-1 type bridge. This can give you an extra 1mm of adjustment, depending on which way they face to start with.

On a Nashville style tune-o-matic, the screws are smaller and are lower down from the top of the bridge, so are normally set facing backwards.