steffgang
Well-Known Member
Hi guys!
So i have this guitar :
since this february.. It is awesome but has one issue - it is neck heavy as hell.
The first thing I did for this issue was to install a piece of led in the electronics compartment to counterbalance the neck :
And it works pretty fine except for the fact that the guitar now weights a ton (10.5 kilos to be exact) after adding this 1.3kg piece of led. But really it is fine as the whole weight is just properly distributed and doesn't tire you at all in contrast to the neck heavy situation which really caused a lot of pain in my left hand almost disabling me to play the thing standing for more than 5 minutes. So ok I fixed the problem but then I continued thinking in the direction..
It seem like the neck of the thing is way out of the body - the upper horn is extending to the 15th fret compared to a regular scale it should be around the 12th fret and that basically puts my left hand in a bit odd position when playing on the first couple of frets and also justifies the neck heaviness prior the led mod.
Well you'd probably say that it is expected with a 30" scale instrument and I agree but I couldn't help myself stop thinking about a solution for this or at least a try. Reading this section of the forum didn't help either as it made me very keen on building a guitar myself
so I decided to experiment with a different body shape that will push the neck further into the body making my left hand come closer to me but pushing my right hand a bit away but to a point of some equilibrium so that both hands' positions will suffer half the severity of the extended scale. Thats what I came to :
Then I thought why not build it from a different wood to explore some more about the wood tonality although I love the sound of the ash. I decided to go for a maple body and I am still not sure what will be the impact of that choice..
So lets see the building process :
1. Cutting the thing with a jigsaw :
2. Making the surfaces flat with routing machine for metal work (thats what I have) :
3. after some hand work on the edges it was time to route for the neck pocket, the pickups and the electronics compartment :
4. Then again a lot of hand sanding to make every surface perfect :
It was time to put the clear coat finish. Then sanding with 500 grid and then another coat and here we are :
this is today's status
and I hope I can finish it this week. I need some advice on what to use for the final sanding polishing to make it as perfect as possible (as the coat was applied with a brush there are inevitable uneven bumps that i need to sand off)
So i have this guitar :
since this february.. It is awesome but has one issue - it is neck heavy as hell.
The first thing I did for this issue was to install a piece of led in the electronics compartment to counterbalance the neck :
And it works pretty fine except for the fact that the guitar now weights a ton (10.5 kilos to be exact) after adding this 1.3kg piece of led. But really it is fine as the whole weight is just properly distributed and doesn't tire you at all in contrast to the neck heavy situation which really caused a lot of pain in my left hand almost disabling me to play the thing standing for more than 5 minutes. So ok I fixed the problem but then I continued thinking in the direction..
It seem like the neck of the thing is way out of the body - the upper horn is extending to the 15th fret compared to a regular scale it should be around the 12th fret and that basically puts my left hand in a bit odd position when playing on the first couple of frets and also justifies the neck heaviness prior the led mod.
Well you'd probably say that it is expected with a 30" scale instrument and I agree but I couldn't help myself stop thinking about a solution for this or at least a try. Reading this section of the forum didn't help either as it made me very keen on building a guitar myself
so I decided to experiment with a different body shape that will push the neck further into the body making my left hand come closer to me but pushing my right hand a bit away but to a point of some equilibrium so that both hands' positions will suffer half the severity of the extended scale. Thats what I came to : Then I thought why not build it from a different wood to explore some more about the wood tonality although I love the sound of the ash. I decided to go for a maple body and I am still not sure what will be the impact of that choice..
So lets see the building process :
1. Cutting the thing with a jigsaw :
2. Making the surfaces flat with routing machine for metal work (thats what I have) :
3. after some hand work on the edges it was time to route for the neck pocket, the pickups and the electronics compartment :
4. Then again a lot of hand sanding to make every surface perfect :
It was time to put the clear coat finish. Then sanding with 500 grid and then another coat and here we are :
this is today's status
and I hope I can finish it this week. I need some advice on what to use for the final sanding polishing to make it as perfect as possible (as the coat was applied with a brush there are inevitable uneven bumps that i need to sand off)
) : The guitar is now just unbelievably comfier, it has perfect balance (without additional load to compensate anything) and weights quite almost as a normal guitar. The sound is wonderfull actually - this wood seem to have removed just a bit of the top frequencies edge and also seems to have less bass which I find perfect for an extended range instrument - the result is extremely tight sounding instrument. Well.. enough speakin.. I think I better let the guitar porn speak for itself as I prepared a lot of stuff for you there :
like John Petrucci wiring and paralel neck as well as the common ones
dunno why
whatever..
