The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    hi Jay,
    Im considering putting a 24.75” neck
    on my yam pacifica strat
    with a cheapo ebay neck
    IIRC you did a similar operation to your tele build

    i think i can handle the woodworking ok

    can you advise me on how you measured up how much wood you needed to remove from end of the neck

    was your method todouble the distance from nut to 12th fret ,
    and then remove enough wood so as to
    place the neck so the string length would be located in the middle of the bridge scale length adjustment range ?

    got any more tips ?

    thanks man

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  3. #2

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    I'm not Jay, but from your question it seems like you're missing basic vocabulary and instrument design.

    The scale is the strings length from nut to bridge. The distance from the 12th fret to the bridge needs to be exactly half that, or else you'll never get the thing in tune. Which is to say "handling the woodworking okay" isn't going to be good enough, it needs to be measured perfectly. It can be done with trial and error, and that's the way to learn if you want to get experience, better buy two necks just in case you go too far on the first, you can't put wood back after you cut it.

    Do you really need to put a 24.75 neck on this when you can buy an Epiphone Les Paul Jr with that scale for $150?

  4. #3

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    The total scale length needs to be 24.75” or 62.8 centimetres. A tele bridge has quite a lot of margin for intonation adjustment (at least 1 cm in both directions) so I knew I didn’t have to be extremely precise.

    I fitted the neck and just measured how much surplus there was (should be about 64.7-62.8= 1.9 cm) and removed wood according to that: a bit from the neck pocket and a bit from the heel of the neck, so the neck could sink 1.9 cm deeper into the body.

    If your body is not routed for a bridge, it’s much easier to just move the bridge a little forward by 1.9 centimetres.

    But since my body already was routed for the pickups and I used a standard tele-bridge I had to move the neck, also to keep the neck pickup in the spot of the ‘virtual 24th fret’.

    Since you are using an existing body you need to remove wood from the neck. Btw, the amount of wood I removed from the neck was the maximum, any more and I would have hit the trussrod. Something to consider: maybe you can’t remove 1.9 cm from the neck without hitting the trussrod.

    Last edited by Little Jay; 06-25-2021 at 09:16 AM.

  5. #4
    great info .... thanks Jay

    maybe I’ll try it

    (or maybe I should just save up for one of these)

    AR520HFM | AR | ELECTRIC GUITARS | PRODUCTS | Ibanez guitars

  6. #5

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    Could you help me out with this: you are going from 25.5 to 24.75 scale. I would think 3/4 inch or 1.9cm to have to be cut off the neck?


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  7. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by Eck
    Could you help me out with this: you are going from 25.5 to 24.75 scale. I would think 3/4 inch or 1.9cm to have to be cut off the neck?


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    Yes, you are right. Fender scale = 25.5” or 64.7 cm (I said 65.5 cm before, but was probably confusing it with the 25.5”).

    Gibson scale is 24.75” or 62.8 cm.

    So 64.7 minus 62.8 makes a difference of 1.9 cm.

    So the whole scale needs to be 1.9 cm shorter.

    But what I did was just to put the 24.75” neck in the tele body and measure the surplus from 62.8 and removed that, partly from the neck (the foot/heel of course, not from the fingerboard!) and partly from the body as you can see in the picture I posted before.

    *EDIT: I see now I f@cked up even more in my previous post, as I took 62.3 cm as the Gibson scale instead of 62.8, so I came up with the completely wrong number of 3.2 cm instead of 1.9……. I corrected the post! I hope pingu didn’t cut his guitar based only on my information ;-)
    Last edited by Little Jay; 06-25-2021 at 09:20 AM.

  8. #7

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    Thanks! I’m thinking of making a 14” width es-135 shaped hollowbody. I can make PDF or DWG for a computer controlled router and I’m thinking of using 4mm spruce for the top and a small block under the bridge with strings through body. And a 25.5 scale. I don’t think the block in that location will do much to the acoustic sound and I still expect quite a woody sound. But I’m going to have to play a few guitars to listen and check my ideas.


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  9. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by Eck
    Thanks! I’m thinking of making a 14” width es-135 shaped hollowbody. I can make PDF or DWG for a computer controlled router and I’m thinking of using 4mm spruce for the top and a small block under the bridge with strings through body. And a 25.5 scale. I don’t think the block in that location will do much to the acoustic sound and I still expect quite a woody sound. But I’m going to have to play a few guitars to listen and check my ideas.


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    My ES-330 project has kind of the same construction (except no strings thru body): all hollow with a small block under the bridge (no further bracing). It has a very loud acoustic sound, it’s a great guitar!
    Last edited by Little Jay; 06-26-2021 at 03:21 AM.

  10. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Little Jay;[URL="tel:1130346"
    1130346[/URL]]I corrected the post! I hope pingu didn’t cut his guitar based only on my information ;-)
    nope , no damage !

  11. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by pingu
    nope , no damage !
    Phew……. :-)

  12. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by Little Jay
    My ES-330 project has kind of the same construction (except no strings thru body): all hollow with a small block under the bridge (no further bracing). It has a very loud acoustic sound, it’s a great guitar!
    Wow! Does the block go to the back of the guitar? I’m exactly looking for experiences with this. Although I know PRS hollow body does it too but every one else has independently moving fronts and backs and that practically asks for the trapeze.


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  13. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by Eck
    Wow! Does the block go to the back of the guitar? I’m exactly looking for experiences with this. Although I know PRS hollow body does it too but every one else has independently moving fronts and backs and that practically asks for the trapeze.


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    No it doesn’t, it’s really just under the bridge:





    I do have a Framus thinline (also very ES-330-like) that has a blok from bridge to tail, but also a reinforcement beam from tail to neck block:



    This guitar sounds less hollow and more like an ES-335. Both guitars have a trapeze tailpiece, but the Framus could support a stop tailpiece.