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Hi Wu / Lora People ...
I'm getting ready to order a WU / Lora archtop....
I have made some previous posts on the site about size. To reiterate, I'm 6'6" with long fingers and only 1 year into guitar (but 53 on keys, 49 on sax).
My reason for a Wu is the neck width / string spacing to accommodate my long fingers (C to G or even A on a good day on piano).
I have a 7 > 6 string 335 clone that's just a bit small at 47 mm nut, skinny neck... fans to 2 5/8" @ bridge.
I have a 8 > 6 string Strat clone that's 52 mm nut, baseball D neck, fans to 2 7/8" @ bridge. Fits great, but I'd like a bit skinnier of a neck.
On the 8 > 6 Strat clone, I don't unintentionally mute strings at all, and there is room for my fingers (which are not fat) to not be "scrunched" when making chord voicings. On the 7 > 6 335 clone, they are a bit scrunched. Guitar newbie question: Do I WANT the string spacing slightly smaller so that I DO mute all the time? (note: I CAN mute with the 8 > 6 Strat clone, but it's not "automatic").
Other than that, a standard archtop is fine. I tried some Eastmans at Guitars & Jazz in NJ, and they were fine (7 strings .. just a bit small, like my 7 > 6 335 cone). I've still gotta settle on bout size. I'm favoring 17" (my 335 clone is 16"). I do prefer light weight. My 8 > 6 Strat clone is a tank.
So... some questions for you knowledgeable guitar cats:
1. In communicating with Wu / Lora, how to describe what I want? There's obviously only one chance to get this right. Obviously, there may be language issues....
2. Do they offer compound radius? I need whatever is easiest for chording down low, soloing up high. Seems like more curvy down low, flatter up high is preferred? What is the standard radius?I can play solos pretty well (apes my sax playing), but chords are somewhat difficult due to the size issue.
3. Is there any choice of neck profile (C, D, V, etc.)?
4. Ditto scale length (looks like only 25", which is fine). My 8> 6 Strat clone is 25.5," which I find a bit big for Jazz chords. The 24.75" on the 335 clone is better.
5. Can they custom cut the nut? My 8 > 6 Strat clone has more string spacing between low E and B than with the other string spacings. It's 10 mm for the 2 lowest strings, and either 9 mm, or 8 mm (hard to tell) for the upper strings.
6. I'm confused about electronics. I'd like Pete Billups Vintage Vibe Charlie Christian after market installed later, so do or don't I ask for any pickup well, pickup installed, etc?. Would I ask for the "floater" pickup right off the bat? Or is that "one or the other" (well or floater)? Apologies if I don't use the proper lingo. I'm a sax player, after all!
7. A lot of their offerings look identical. Are they? Or am I missing something? Who ordered which one?
8. Does everybody have a totally solid wood body model?
9. Best woods for Jazz tone? (I can spend more money if needed).
10. Tailpiece for that wide string spacing @ bridge: Will they be able to make one? Or do I have to hunt for that somewhere?
I know that's a lot of questions! I'd appreciate answers / input on any of them, so if you know even one or two areas, kindly respond...
Thanks for the input!
- Jeff NewtonLast edited by Saxophone Tall; 03-29-2022 at 08:15 PM.
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03-29-2022 07:30 PM
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Tal Farlow had huge hands, and for awhile played a 3/4 size Gibson. People with big hands play mandolin. It just takes some practice. If 25.5" scale is too big for 'jazz chords' your hands aren't that big. As for Lora, just tell her what you want. Wu will do almost anything. I have no idea how good he is with a 7-string though. It shouldn't be more difficult than a 6-string. The spacing at the nut is pretty much standard. It's not really possible to expand it much, because it's already about as wide as practical. The usual spacing is equal distance between the strings, which means the distance between the string centers must vary. The spacing at the bridge is also rather standard, and the string follows the edges of the fretboard, so you can't get much wider. 45mm at the nut is pretty standard, and should be wide enough, but you can probably request wider. You can ask for whatever neck profile you want, and you might get it, but I would suggest learning to live with 45mm for a 6-string, no real clue about 7-string. I once owned a Bob-built Benedetto 7-string with a 1.75" nut, and it was playable but slightly cramped. The tailpiece will match the number of strings. The spacing at the tailpiece is normally narrower than that at the bridge, it's expected. Don't worry about it. I've ordered mine without any electronics, because I install my own pickup. They come standard with a floating pickup mounted to the pickguard, but you can tell them not to mount the pickguard, and to install no pickup. The standard woods are spruce for the top and maple for the back and sides. That's pretty much the standard everywhere, and might be all Wu has. Other species, which I consider inferior for tonewood, might be more expensive. I suppose you could get a maple top, but I wouldn't recommend it. Go with spruce on maple. The standard models are, well, standard, other than size, but you can get whatever shape you want - cutaway or not, just send pictures or drawings. The best way to get your desires across is by pictures, since everybody knows a picture is worth a thousand words, especially if the words are in a foreign language. I don't know if Wu even offers a laminate guitar, he mostly does solid hand-carved archtops.
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1. Lora does a good job with her translation app.
Originally Posted by Saxophone Tall
2. I’d not go there, but you can ask to see if Lora understands. Remember you’re not speaking to someone who understands English.
3. Absolutely
4. Absolutely
5. Have your luthier do that. Think of your guitar as a frame after which everything else is installed. Make sense?
6. I had a PB CC installed. No electronics ordered.
7. Spruce and maple, which is normal for them.
8. I don’t know if they make a laminate.
9. Spruce and maple is standard.
10. He has cut custom tailpieces, but whether you can communicate your desired string spacing?
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Thank you for your answers! I do need the wider fretboard, I can easily palm a basketball. On my saxophones, I play primarily tenor, but baritone fits better. My tenor, alto and the tiny soprano all have corks on the keys to make them fit better. Can't do that on guitar! physics is what it is, and even though my hands are huge, they don't have the "guitar sideways vulcan - Spock stretch," so horizontal isn't the problem, vertical is. It's like playing flute or piccolo! Those are way too small for me. (I refuse to play those BTW, whereas a lot of sax players do; so Broadway is out as well as some big bands e.g., Thad Jones Mel Lewis charts all use the extra woodwinds).
My "conversion guitars" have no tailpiece as such / made for 7 string. BTW, I'm not looking for a 7 or 8 string from Wu / Lora. I just had those converted to see if I could avoid a $6K+ luthier.
My 7 > 6 string and 8 > 6 string are considerably larger than 60 mm at the bridge. I would like 66-68 for this project. Maybe TWO tail pieces? That would look pretty "out there"!
Good idea on the pictures. I'd add pics of my 7 > 6 and *> 6 if I could figure out how to do it...
Thanks again,
- Jeff
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I spent some back and forth with Laura and photos. Many of them. I succeeded in receiving the 18” I ordered. Originally Posted by Saxophone Tall
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Cool.
Which is considered the "standard" neck thickness - C? Regardless, do Wu's necks run on the "thick" side?
So, just stick with whatever standard radius they offer? I will ask, but standard hold be fine, anyway.
Thanks!
- Jeff
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both C, D. Wu is from the Eastman school which most I owned were D. Originally Posted by Saxophone Tall
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C to A???
Jeez man, you should get one of these instead.
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Wow! That's something else!
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Thanks ....
Any guess as to which one would better fit a wide neck?
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Was a two pickup option available? Or does one only want a single pickup at the neck?
I would be getting the same Charlie Christian pickups from Pete at Vintage Vibe. A friend of mine has some. He has two on his guitar, but uses just the neck one for Jazz playing.
I'm a little confused as to what to tell Lora - that I will be installing my own two pickups (or one..) later?
Thanks,
- Jeff
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You can get as many pickups as you want. One is plenty for me, but others want more. It's possible, although not usual, to get two floating pickups on the pickguard. Or you can get set pickups, like many manufacturers offer. Just tell Lora what you want. As mentioned, Wu started with Eastman, and you're better off getting something at least vaguely like an Eastman. If you want a thick neck, specify it. Mine are somewhat on the thick side compared to most modern factory-built instruments. The 18" Wu I got off ebay has a rather chunky D neck, but the ones I ordered have a C shape, as I wanted. You can order whatever width you want, I suppose, within reason, but I really recommend that you think carefully about it. Unless your fingers are unusually thick, a wider neck isn't really necessary. Finger length doesn't dictate neck width, but really fat fingers may be more comfortable on a wider neck. As I said above, Tal was known to have huge hands, but he didn't use a wide neck. But then Tal wasn't a normal guitar player.
Another consideration is resale possibility, and an unusually wide neck would be difficult to sell. That may or may not be a worry for you.
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Thanks. I did play test the 7 string Eastmans at Guitars & Jazz in New Jersey, and basically a copy of one of those in 6 string would be fine, with a bit more width in the neck.
As with piccolo (where my fingers cover more than one key at a time, in addition to the fact that 6'6" guys just shouldn't play piccolo!), my fingers are too big to only cover one string on a normal sized guitar.
I don't consider my fingers "fat," but they are as big around as fat but shorter ones are, if that makes sense.
The first guitar I bought has a normal sized neck, a beautiful Cort Joe Beck, which I can't play at all, because it's like piccolo for me.
When I first started playing sax in 1973, I tried to copy Phil Woods' hand position on the Showboat record (flat fingered right hand with wrist cocked). That just doesn't work for me, and if I'd have done that, I'd have carpel tunnel.
The solution was corks on the keys. Works great, but hard to find a case that fits!
Since my 8 > 6 string fits and since I can form chords on it that I can't (or can barely do, with a totally cramped feeling) on my 7 > 6 string, that appears to be the correct size for me.
I don't care about resale value, but that's a good point for those who do.
I did notice that the Les Paul (signed by Les) at GC in Hollywood (in the glass case) had a MUCH wider neck than the one on the floor for sale. I'm certainly not a guitar historian, but it strongly looks like guitar necks (or at least some of them) shrunk over the years. Why, I wonder?
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Manufacturers tend to make what sells, and thinner necks sell far better. Pretty much any question you can ask eventually leads to money. It's possible (actually easy) to convert a 7-string to 6. All it needs is a new nut and perhaps a tailpiece, and probably a new pickup. The hole for the extra tuner can be filled. I've seen it done with a MOP dot on the face of the headstock, over the dowel filling the hole. If you want a guitar quickly and at a reasonable price, that should work. My last Wu took >9 months. Covid still exists, both here and in China. But you can almost certainly get Wu to build a guitar for you with whatever neck width you desire, within reason.
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More than none months for the WU? Ouch! That's the other reason I'd go Wu rather than luthier ... one year wait for most (the other being, yeah, money).
Wu says 90 days .... are they really that far behind?
As a six foot six guy who hasn't been able to buy clothes that fit at a decent price since he was about 13, I know firsthand about economies of scale. 38" sleeve? Not even at Brooks brothers, before they went out of business.
I do have a 7 string conversion. It's just a bit small. It's from Matt Raines in Austin.
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I suppose the question here is if Wu (usually) makes his own necks, but he should certainly be able to do so!
6'6, that's around 2m, right? Doesn't seem particularly tall nowadays, at least not if you're from a country that competes at the highest levels in sports like (men's) basketball
I can imagine the problem with neck width though if you're also not built as a drawn-out version of a (much) smaller person (like Paganini apparently was).
There seems to be a bit of confusion in this thread between fretboard (nut) width and thickness of the neck (and its profile), so I don't know how to interpret the "a bit skinnier than 52mm" from the OP. Have you ever tried classical guitars, maybe you could use those as a reference? It certainly shouldn't be a problem to put a neck with that kind of width on a guitar that's a lot larger than your typical archtop.
Many people who claim to have issues with too wide a neck in fact struggle with scale length and/or having 14-frets-to-body necks. I think it stands to reason that the opposite should be true too, and that you might be served by a longer scale. See if you can find a Breedlove Atlas (BJ 350 CM). That's an acoustic bass that is essentially jumbo (so 16'ish lower bout) with a long scale neck. No idea how wide its neck is, but I think you should be able to get an idea if you'd be helped by that kind of scale length.
PS: have you ever tried if holding the guitar in classical position helps you? I'm 1m90 (or so I was last time I measured ^^) though I'm not convinced I have long arms. I definitely can only play in classical position even if a 14fret neck makes me extend my arm just a bit too much for barrés in the lowest positions. I think a 48mm nut would be perfect for me, at least for lower tension or action strings but I get around quite nicely with the 1.75" or so nut width on my Loar.
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Playing a guitar in laptop position helps! And makes a lot more sense to me (since I'm a pianist as well as a saxophonist). I do have a classical guitar (the Yamaha "Silent" one) and it fits well. It's what I'm after in an archtop. I prefer the non-classical position for an archtop, although the hand position is somewhat helpful.
I have a Strat clone with the longer scale and for Jazz chords prefer the shorter, 24.75" Gibson scale of my 7 string conversion to 6 string 335 Clone. My hands are huge, but not being a native guitarist, I don't stretch my fingers like Spock with the Vulcan V needed for some Jazz chords on a longer neck. That actually surprised me. It's the vertical (between strings) thing that's an issue for me - the strings are too close together. So if I play a minor 7th chord starting on the low E, it's difficult to get a clean sounding chord because my fingers are too wide and are scrunched together.
My fingers are not fat --- for their length. If they were normal length, they would be extremely fat proportionally. Makes sense?
One friend suggested a short scale acoustic 6 string bass to convert.... But that's a 30" scale.
6'6" is 1.9812 meters, so about 2, yes. That's Michael Jordan's height. LeBron James is 3" taller (2.0574 meters).
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Laptop position? If you mean like a dobro, with a tonebar, than yeah, I can see how that would help
No idea how tall he really is, but judging from Justin Johnson's LH fingerings he must have very long fingers too. Watching how others manage in comparable situations can help.
FWIW, I played (baroque) violin before switching to guitar a few years ago. Of course we don't play as many chords as a typical guitarist does, but not using chin and shoulder rest does oblige you to keep more fingers on the fretboard. I must have grown into it (started at about 10) but I didn't have any particular problems preventing strings from buzzing against my finger tips. There are many ways you can plant them, and some are more prone to hitting or muting neighbouring strings than others. Your hand position can help here, and that's where scale length and/or guitar position can come in. Lastly: do I understand correctly that you're self-taught on guitar? If so I'd consider taking some lessons; despite my extensive experience on another string instrument and the fact that I'm not really interested in developing proper classical technique my teacher keeps surprising me with very useful tips that I might never have thought of myself.
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I'll check out Justin (never heard of him, so thanks!).
I have accomplished guitarist friends that I've known for decades and they agree with me that a wider fingerboard is appropriate for me.
It just makes sense. I wear a size 16 shoe. I just can't feet me feet into a "normal" size 10, 12, or even a 14.
Question: Place your left hand ring, middle and forefinger on strings E, A and D at fret 12, just straight on (as if your guitar was in its stand, and you just go up to it and place your fingers there, with fingertips perpendicular to the fretboard and touching it) How do your fingers "line up" with those strings? Are the centers of your fingertips "on" each of those strings?
I've never played violin, but I do play a little cello, which fits well enough. I also have a basses (EUB, Fender and Gold Tone), all of which fit well.
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I certainly didn't want to question that. The question is how much wider than what width Originally Posted by Saxophone Tall
I doubt many adults can do that, not even on a classical, esp. not if you also keep your fingers aligned with the frets. If I do that on my resonator (with 45mm the narrowest, and strung with classical strings that reach the widest amplitude), the centre of my middle finger falls on the D, the A string between annular and middle finger, and the centre of my index is somewhere between the G and B strings. Thank goodness that nylon strings are more forgiving to bending them aside without changing pitch too audibly! But, I have a really hard time putting fingers 2-4 at the same fret on any of my guitars (and get dirty looks from my teacher if I make barré chords with anything other than the indexQuestion: Place your left hand ring, middle and forefinger on strings E, A and D at fret 12, just straight on (as if your guitar was in its stand, and you just go up to it and place your fingers there, with fingertips perpendicular to the fretboard and touching it) How do your fingers "line up" with those strings? Are the centers of your fingertips "on" each of those strings? )
BTW, I've been meaning to suggest you could look into a fan fret set-up.
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Yeah, the quest is for the "Goldilocks" size for me, which is unfortunately grial and error. It's too bad there isn't a "guitar fitting" device like there is for high end bicycles (that's another thing that's tough for me to fit ... I have a custom Waterford that's huge).
The one area where it DOESN'T appear that a super wide fretboard is best if using my thumb - too wide and it can't be done. So, there's THAT to consider as well... On the following guitar, I can do it, though....
On that "experiment," my fingers are, on my 47 mm nut, 762 mm @ place where right hand plays, 7 > 6 string conversion 335 clone:
Ring Finger: Finger is on the E string, E string in middle of fingertip
Middle finger: finger is right between A and D strings
Index finger: finger is on the G string; G string is in middle of fingertip
This guitar feels "about right" or "just a tad small." It's a Matt Raines "LA 7" that Matt and his luthier converted for me.
For a Wu, I'd try a "little" bigger: 48, 49 or 50 mm nut; maybe 66mm @ place where right hand plays?
On my right hand, my fingers pretty much "just fit" between the strings. Since I'm trying to play with my fingers, I "think" that's either "just big enough" of a space or, again, "just a little bit too small." This is a lot less critical to me that on the fretboard.
Thanks,
- Jeff Newton
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I just uTubed Justin Johnson ... I'm pretty sure I met that cat playing in Washington Square Park in NYC, as he had a "shovel guitar" as well....!
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My Seagull and Loar have almost exactly the same nutwidth (on paper the Loar should be a bit less) but the string spacing is very slightly (1mm or so?) wider on the Loar. I can't remember about string spacing at the saddle but I now believe people who claim they could notice a small difference like that in total string width at the nut. Originally Posted by Saxophone Tall
Just to say, if 47mm feels just a tad small you might not need to go to much more than 48.5mm, esp. if there's still some margin for increasing the string spacing and you want to be able to use thumb positions. But you could order 2 necks and 2 saddles just to be sure
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I’m 6’2” and have exceptionally large hands.
My progression was:
12 string converted to 6 string
Custom made steel string at 48mm
Classical guitar at standard 52mm
All my guitars are now 52mm, but please be aware that i only play classical / chord-melody / flamenco styles
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FWIW guitars are often spec’ed by nut width, scale length, thickness at the nut, thickness at the 12th fret, and profile (“C”, “D”, and “V” being the most common). Give any competent luthier those, and you should get pretty close to what you like.
For example (and these are in inches ‘cuz I iz ‘mercan) I tend towards 25” scale (PRS, Benedetto), 1-3/4” nut (wider than most, but not classical wide), .85” under the nut and .95” at the twelfth (slightly shallow), “C” profile (a gentle curve throughout just coming to perpendicular at the fretboard).
It is hard to spec the string spacing at bridge unless they are making you a wood or bone saddle. The standard spacing is 2-1/6”. The tailpiece spacing doesn’t change the string spacing because the strings sit in grooves at the saddle/bridge.
Typical electric guitars have a tapered strings that are closer together at the nut and farther at the saddle. They usually spread by about 7/8” over the length of the scale. Classical guitars taper slightly less spreading about 3/8”(10mm) over their length.
I don’t know what a neck with no taper would feel like, but I have to asume it wouldn’t feel right because I’ve seen tons of wacky guitars and none had that. So if we assume a fixed bridge spacing of 2-1/16” (52.5mm) and a minimal taper of 3/8” (10mm) your widest nut would be around 1-7/8” (48mm). Less if you want a more traditional taper.
I hope that’s helpful.
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