Baritone 28-1/2" scale conversion neck

[newuser1]

Some time ago I've made this 28-1/2" scale baritone neck using Stewmac's fret template, however I abandoned it at the time for various reasons. A few days ago I decided to fix most of the problems it had, installed frets, refinished it and now I want to pair it with a cheap strat body I bought off eBay some time ago. The problem is that when I dry-fit it and measure, the bridge location should be about 3/8" closer to the neck. I understand the reason for that, and I know that I need to shorten the neck a bit, which will bring the 12th fret closer to the bridge and ultimately in the right position, so I can properly intonate the guitar.

How do I shorten the neck enough, while keeping the neck heel radius intact? Any ideas are greatly appreciated?

 

[Freeman Keller]

What does the heel look like? What fret is the body joint? Can you route the neck pocket 3/8 towards the neck pickup cavity? Does the fretboard extend beyond the end of the neck, if so how much? What do you intend to use for a bridge?

It would help me to visualize it if you put a piece of tape on the body and drew a line representing the uncompensated scale with the neck in place as in the third picture.

 

[crazydave911]

My play would be to shorten the neck below the fretboard to same exact radius the neck already has

 

[guitarbuilder]

As Dave said, remove the neck wood and leave the fretboard alone. That way you retain the look and get the fit. In other words you have a fretboard overhang.

 

[newuser1]

What does the heel look like? What fret is the body joint? Can you route the neck pocket 3/8 towards the neck pickup cavity? Does the fretboard extend beyond the end of the neck, if so how much? What do you intend to use for a bridge?

It would help me to visualize it if you put a piece of tape on the body and drew a line representing the uncompensated scale with the neck in place as in the third picture.

Freeman,

The body I have is a standard Strat body already routed for tremolo bridge, and I'm waiting for a Wilkinson strat tremolo bridge to be delivered today. Probably routing the neck pocket deeper towards the bridge is not a bad idea, I just have to check how the templates I have match up with the existing neck pocket. This will require pickguard modification, but that's easier I guess. The fretboard doesn't extend beyond the end of the neck. I'll do a mock-up later and will add pictures.

My play would be to shorten the neck below the fretboard to same exact radius the neck already has

As Dave said, remove the neck wood and leave the fretboard alone. That way you retain the look and get the fit. In other words you have a fretboard overhang.

Dave & Marty,

I was considering doing exactly that, however my question was more on the technicalities of the operation (how exactly do I do it). If I start doing it by hand I might (probably will) ruin the curve at the back of the heel. I also am not sure where exactly does the trussrod end at the heel, so that might cause problems. Either way I want to remove a bit from the fretboard end as well, as I started doing 24th fret, but there wasn't enough space once I shaped the heel. In short I want to remove whatever's left from the 24th fret slot.

Any ideas on how to reduce the neck length at the heel in as steady and predictable manner while I keep the curve at the heel with the same radius?

 

[guitarbuilder]

It's a 5" radius curve if it is a strat. That curve meets up to .25" radius curves like a tele. I would use a small handsaw to get close and then some abrasive stuck to a flat and sturdy stick to sand it. The rod could be an issue. You can also just sand most of it out of the end of the fretboard and neck wood, as it looks like you have extra wood there. Consider longer screws for your saddles too. I stuck a gibson on a tele body and just replaced the screws to get the saddles to move forward. RC car screws IIRC. I guess a little of each would do it. Depends on the saddles too.

Moving the whole neck back would involve mangling a normal pickguard leaving not much between the neck pickup and the neck.

 

[newuser1]

Thanks Marty,

Good point about the pickguard if I route the pocket further. This is the bridge I ordered:



Once I install it on the body, how exactly should I measure the 28.5" scale length? I mean I obviously start at the nut, but what is the end point - is it the beginning of the saddles when they are at max length (closest to the neck, as far as the screw goes)?

 

[crazydave911]

Thanks Marty,

Good point about the pickguard if I route the pocket further. This is the bridge I ordered:



Once I install it on the body, how exactly should I measure the 28.5" scale length? I mean I obviously start at the nut, but what is the end point - is it the beginning of the saddles when they are at max length (closest to the neck, as far as the screw goes)?

First,move all the saddles ALL the way forward (towards the nut) then measure your 28.5" and that's where your high E saddle should be

 

[guitarbuilder]

The break over point of the saddle....top dead center should be on the scale length. I usually go about 85-90 percent forward so you have some wiggle room if the holes are off a hair. Either way you need to go away from the nut to intonate the strings.

 

[Freeman Keller]

Freeman,

The body I have is a standard Strat body already routed for tremolo bridge, and I'm waiting for a Wilkinson strat tremolo bridge to be delivered today. Probably routing the neck pocket deeper towards the bridge is not a bad idea, I just have to check how the templates I have match up with the existing neck pocket. This will require pickguard modification, but that's easier I guess. The fretboard doesn't extend beyond the end of the neck. I'll do a mock-up later and will add pictures.

Some thoughts. As you know, a tele and a strat heel are different. A strat neck will fit a tele body but will leave a gap, a tele neck will not fit a strat body without some work. Both are tapered (wider at the back than the front) - if you move the neck farther into the body the heel will be loose in the pocket and might have to be shimmed.

I haven't built a bari so I can't say for sure but the theory says you should need more compensation than a shorter scale guitar with skinny strings. It might be that you don't need to move the neck into the body as far as you think just based on scale length. I would definitely run the compensation calculator for the exact strings and tunings that you plan to use, then apply that to your bridge.

One more thing to think about - making the neck is the hard part, I would consider making a new body exactly to fit the neck, then locate the bridge and pickups once you have the body. Working backwards from a fixed bridge location is asking for trouble unless you have it exactly figured out.

 

[newuser1]

I haven't built a bari so I can't say for sure but the theory says you should need more compensation than a shorter scale guitar with skinny strings. It might be that you don't need to move the neck into the body as far as you think just based on scale length. I would definitely run the compensation calculator for the exact strings and tunings that you plan to use, then apply that to your bridge.

What is this compensation calculator you posted about?

 

[Freeman Keller]

I'm sorry, I've mentioned this thing about every time anyone has a question about scale length and where to put a bridge. You need to know some engineering parameters about your strings and some stuff about your guitar and its setup. String parameters are posted on D'Addario's site, about the only place I know, but since strings are pretty much the same I use the data for generic strings

Liutaio Mottola Lutherie Information Website

Information for builders of stringed musical instruments.

www.liutaiomottola.com

https://www.daddario.com/globalassets/pdfs/accessories/tension_chart_13934.pdf

 

[Zepfan]

Modifying the neck works well, but then it pretty much can't be used on anything else.
Modifying the body to accept the neck works well too and if a regular sized neck is put back on that body, a filler piece can be used to fill any void or covered with pickguard material.

Both ways work, just depends if your going to keep both pieces together or not.

 

[newuser1]

I've shortened the neck and more or less kept the curve and now I have a good fit. Here it is:



The problem is that I probably shortened the neck a bit too much - right now the distance between the nut and the fully extended saddles of the bridge is exactly 28.5" which is my scale length and this is when the bridge is pulled all the way back in the cavity. Considering I'll be using longer thicker strings this probably means that I won't be able to intonate the guitar at all .

This leads me to my next questions - when installing a Strat tremolo bridge is it ok to pull the bridge all the way back in the cavity? Would that affect the tremolo function?

Here are the 2 baritone string sets I have:



I think I should go with the lighter set, to give myself a fighting chance intonating the guitar. What do you think?

Finally I have 3 cheap pre-wired Chinese Strat pickguards. Which one do you like best?

 

[guitarbuilder]

Can you cut the springs to gain some room? I wonder if these saddles would swap in there?

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[newuser1]

Can you cut the springs to gain some room? I wonder if these saddles would swap in there?

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Here is what I have now when the bridge is pulled at max distance (limited by the bridge cavity) away from the neck. In my experience with 25.5" scale you need to move the thicker strings' saddles back a lot to properly intonate, and I suspect with this longer scale and thicker strings it will be worse. To make things worse when I pull the bridge all the way to the back, the tremolo won't float, because the block is hitting the cavity wall.



The only think I can think of is expanding the bridge cavity away from the neck like in the pic below. What do you think, would that work?

 

[newuser1]

Can you cut the springs to gain some room? I wonder if these saddles would swap in there?

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Marty, that idea about swapping the saddles was genius, thank you!

I just need to find longer screws and longer springs. The saddle screws from the Jag/Mustang bridge are the same size as the ones on the Wilkinson Strat bridge I'm using. Do you know by any chance what size are they and where can I buy some? Same for the springs, where can I get some longer springs from?

Thanks again!

 

[crazydave911]

As for me I wouldn't give a flip if the trem even moved but yeah I don't see why moving the bridge back would hurt as long as it intonates

 

[guitarbuilder]

You can double springs if you need to. Check to see if you have any ball point pens around too. Hardware stores carry springs. Metric screw assortments are at amazon or your hardware store. I used RC car screws on my project. I forget the thread size, maybe M3 or M4. Humbucker ring adjustment screws might fit too.

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This is an example of RC screws M3

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[Boreas]

I am not sure if it is possible, but couldn't you just add a thick shim in the neck socket to adjust the scale length to match the existing bridge?