Who makes custom scale length guitar necks?

Charles Dempsey · From: Shongaloo, LA

I'm looking for an 18 to 20 inch scale length guitar neck. Something around 16 to 18 frets. Standard strat or tele heel shape.

The neck I'm looking for is what you would get if you chopped a regular guitar neck off at the 6th or 7th fret and grafted the headstock back on.

Anyone know of a neck maker than can handle custom scale length?

TIA,
Charlie

Edited to clear up impression that I was looking for a Gibson scale neck.
_________________
Yes officer, I know I smell like beer. I'm not drinking it, I'm wearing it!

Bill Hatcher · From: Atlanta Ga. USA

Charlie. Most neck builders who supply for the mainline luthiers are only building 25 1/2 Fender and 24 3/4 Gibson scale.

What scale are you looking to have made?

Charles Dempsey · From: Shongaloo, LA

Hey Bill,

I'm thinking 18 to 20 inch scale length. It's gonna be a unison 12 string.

I'm shooting for a mandolin'y sounding instrument that is more versitile than a mandolin, and I don't have to do any work to learn to play it.

Charlie
_________________
Yes officer, I know I smell like beer. I'm not drinking it, I'm wearing it!

Denny Turner · From: Oahu, Hawaii USA

I would think that bumping this discussion chain for awhile should find some Fo'Bros that know who might custom make necks. Short of that there are Fo'Bros such as George Piburn who have a good background in CAD / CNC production they use in making their instruments. If hand-made or custom CAD / CNC is too expensive, then there are some manufacturing shops in the orient selling their wares on ebay, that I surmise would appreciate getting some custom work and the PR of doing so could bring them.

If your stated brand, scale and number of frets is not set in stone, then you might provide some more info about what your ideas & intent is; I'd imagine some good suggestions for alternatives would be offered here by Fo'Bros.

Aloha,
DT~

Charles Dempsey · From: Shongaloo, LA

Charles Dempsey · From: Shongaloo, LA

I did a google search, then e-mailed Ed Roman's place and a couple more. So far no joy.

I had no idea this was such a tough question.

Charlie

Randy Cordle · From: Illinois, USA

Hi, Charles.
Since you have neck pocket templates I assume you're into construction. Here's a link to a article over at e-mando.com that covers conversion of a $99 mini-strat to an electric 8 string octave mando that I did a few years ago. You could use the same basic pricipal for 12 strings and not have to narrow the neck profile. It's close to what you're looking to do, with a 22-7/8" scale length.

http://www.emando.com/builders/Randy_Cordle_EOM.htm
_________________
www.Bluestemstrings.com

Jerry Overstreet · From: Louisville Ky

Charlie, something you might consider is one of the mini guitars. The scale is 22 3/4---20 fret. Provided the headstock will accomodate 6 more tuners, and I believe it will, you could just change out the nut and install the neck on your body. At worst, you might have to dowel and redrill the headstock.

You can buy the whole axe for way less than you'd pay for a custom neck and pitch or sell the parts you don't need.

The neck width at the nut is kinda skimpy on these for 12 strings though.

Ideally, find a Fender/Squier dealer that would order you one of these necks unworked, if they could do that.

Just a thought.

Charles Dempsey · From: Shongaloo, LA

Hey Randy,

That is a cool project! Excellent documentation and good workmanship.

I'm working with a luthier here in town on this project. He nixed the idea of converting a kid scale guitar because we'd have to shorten the neck, and he feels we need more strength for 12 string. If I can't find a maker who is already setup for custom scale necks we get to tackle it ourselves.

Charlie
_________________
Yes officer, I know I smell like beer. I'm not drinking it, I'm wearing it!

Darrell Urbien · From: Echo Park, California

Don't know if he still does this, but you might try this link:

http://www.xstrange.com/necksmain.html

Charles Dempsey · From: Shongaloo, LA

Darrell Urbien · From: Echo Park, California

No problem! NFI, either. I found his site awhile ago looking for info about those Ampeg scroll basses, and IIRC he was doing a lot more business with the custom necks. Please let me know how it goes (offlist, if necessary). I was thinking of using him for a future kooky project of mine that also would involve a custom bolt-on neck.

Denny Turner · From: Oahu, Hawaii USA

Darrel:

Yeee-Hahhh....; That Bruce Johnson site is sure one to put on file! THANKS.

-------

Charles:

Cheeseburger for thought: You might look into a Danelectro Guitarlin, either as a features / math / etc study, or as a stand alone 12 string conversion. The Guitarlin has frets all the way up to yer armpit (2 octaves), invented to afford the upper octave for Mandolin "sound" (register) on 6 strings, ...while also affording yer "versatility" downscale of your desired short-scale as well, or could be capoed for the purpose of the scale length you desire. (I've wondered why 12 strings weren't the standard for the Guitarlin). All of the Danelectro 1998-2003 (MASONITE BODIED) Reissue necks had the same profile (maybe not so with their other non-reissue / new design guitars), so removing and swapping around a 6 string Guitarlin headstock with 12 string headstock at their neck joints shouldn't be that difficult for a decent luthier shop. Without the pieces in my hand to study, it SEEMS it might be similarly "easy" to cut a new headstock-to-neck joint on the Guitarlin neck at the scale length you desire and join a 12 string headstock there and feather-out the joint; A shop like tht Bruce Johnson's sure could. But cutting down a Guitarlin neck would also require re-doing the position markers as well; The bridge datum would remain the same; So joining a 12 string headstock to the Guitarlin's more-versatile FULL scale length might be something to consider, .....again having a capo option for the shorter scale if desired. Even though NOS-fit hardware is still readily available, including tuneable 12 string bridges ...it might be more economical to buy a whole Guitarlin for all it's parts; The lipstick pickups don't care how many strings are over them. The Guitarlin neck is MUCH longer than the 12 string necks, so simply mounting a 12 string neck would require bringing the bridge datum forward too, ...which might be workable if you had a blank Longhorn body. ~~~~~~~ Should you need / desire it, ....I have about 10 flawless 1968 vintage NOS Danelectro WOOD longhorn bodies made exceptionally well by Kawai for Danelectro; Uncut, undrilled, still in their original packaging, ...clean as a baby's butt... except for the neck pockets roughly under-cut in awaiting final machining, binding over-run there not trimmed. I can send pics if desired. I don't have Guitarlin necks, and I don't know anyone that does; So back to a whole Guitarlin and headstock change-out maybe making more sense; And the Danelectro / Guitarlin Reissue's masonite bodies DO have a very good electric acoustic quality, especially when excited by an speaker field.

Aloha,
DT~

Charles Dempsey · From: Shongaloo, LA

Hey Denny,

You 'da man! I searched "danelectro guitarlin", and found this.

http://www.mandolin-guitar.com/info/what.jsp

That URL tells more than you ever wanted to know about mandolin-guitars. That page led me to this:

http://www.jerryjonesguitars.com/Nshorty.htm

And this!

http://www.phantomguitars.com/mando.html

Jackpot!

Both are 15 3/4 scale length, which is a bit shorter than I was looking for, but what the heck.

Now I just got to figure out which one to get. Errrrrrrr...........

Charlie

Denny Turner · From: Oahu, Hawaii USA

Cool stuff you found there Charles.

Thank You for the kind words, ...but twernt nuthin I did, ...just numbers that floated out of my head reading your interesting discussion; Having a dear and keen interest in Danelectros, I've had to hash-out how Nate, George and Vinnie registered Dano's several scale lengths and number of frets onto their several 4, 6 and 12 string bodies, ...while maintaining reasonable production sanity.

Having thought about this discussion chain, I think "simply" putting a 12 string headstock and bridge on a Dano guitarlin, would make one heckuva versatile 12 string guitar, as well as a mandolin-guitar when capoed to whatever scale length / register desired; And when / if a particular scale / register became preferred, ...a set of offset fret markers could be additionally inlaid into the neck for the mandolin scale. One negative consideration might be playing "open" fingerings at a capo clamped up where the frets get tight. I seem to remember the left-hand first finger and capo not taking kindly to each other ....long time ago when I capoed a 12 string up high on the neck to get mandolin sounds. However, a custom 12 string guitarlin neck might be detuned 2 whole steps which would make it's open strings synchronize to playing up high without a capo as though the 8th fret were capoed; And if the Phantoms octave-up scheme would work well for mandolin playing, then the standard / spanish 12 string tuning would afford open strings while playing as though the 12th fret were the nut.

It looks to me like a guitarlin neck would balance the longhorn body a heckuva lot better than the short neck Jerry's 12 string guitar-mandolin has; But then again, ....Jerry ain't no dummy; Certainly worth at least checking out his favoring doing it that way.

In any case; BEST of luck in yer venture. Let me know if you go the custom 12 string guitarlin route and need Dano parts; I've got a pretty good Dano parts network on the 'puter here.

Aloha,
DT~

Charles Dempsey · From: Shongaloo, LA

I received a reply from Mr. Johnson at Extremely Strange Musical Instrument Co. I'm sure he wouldn't mind me sharing it, so here it is.

James Henry · From: Sherwood, AR, USA

Hi Charles:

I have a program, on a spreadsheet, which will figure the fret positions for any string instrument scale length you can dream up.

If you will send me your email address I will attach the file to an EMAIL AND SEND IT TO YOU.

The 12 tone scale is logarithmic.

It uses the 12th root of 2 (1.059463) to figure the scale length. The
frequency of a note and the distance between frets differ by a factor
of the square root of 2. for instance, An "A" note is 440hz. an "Ab"
will be 440/1.059463 or 415.3 Hz. A# will be 440 times 1.059463 or 493.88HZ

If you want a scale length of 20 inches, divide 20 by 1.059463 and this
wil give you the distance from the bridge to the first fret which is 18.88 in. subtract 18.88 from 20 to get the distance from the nut to the first fret.

You can do all the calculations with the above information, but the program makes it faster. You Just stick in the scale length and it with figure everything immediately. Very Happy

Tim Simpson · From: Washington, USA

I wrote a BASIC program thay figures out any scale length for any number of frets. Let me know if you are interested.
Tim

Rick Abbott · From: Indiana, USA

If you want an instrument to your EXACT specs, look at Dan O'Vadka. Google him. He's the real deal. I have 4 of his insruments and I even named my kid after him!!!!!!
_________________
RICK ABBOTT
Sho~Bud D-10 Professional #7962
Remington T-8, Sehy #112
1975 Peavey Pacer

Ken Lamison · From: Pennsylvania, USA

I own a Jerry Jones Neptune Shorty 12-string and am impressed with the build quality (Gotoh machine heads and 12-saddle adjustable bridge, lipstick pickups and series/parallel pickup selector). You could probable find one for around the $600 quoted for a neck alone or contact Jerry for a neck.
Ken

Charles Dempsey · From: Shongaloo, LA

Forum Index > Wanted To Buy		Next oldest topic :: Next newest topic