Hello Everyone!

[RexTheDog]

Hello everyone, ive been watching Warmoth and this forum for quite some time and finally decided to create a profile and join in on all the fun!  I wanted to say how great i think it is that this community has developed around diy guitars and all the possibilities there are ive really learnt alot over the last couple of years!

I have a question about guitar scale.  I currently play a fender strat with a 25 1/2" scale.  I have quite small hands and am considering switching to a 24 3/4" scale when i finally build my own warmoth, but im concerned about losing some of the snappiness in the tone as the strings wont have as much tension on them.

Basically i had a cool idea today that ive decided to present to any one here who is interested.  Say you have a 24 3/4" scale guitar with a tunomatic bridge and either a stoptail or string-thru design.  In theory, is it possible to say move the stop tail or the holes that the strings pass through a bit further back on the guitar in order to gain extra string tension?

If this could work without mucking up the intonation or anything else then i will give it a go and tell everyone how it goes!  Im getting right into this cutomising every little aspect of my design and if i could have a 24 3/4" scale guitar with the string tension of a 25 1/2" scale i would be in heaven!

:rock-on:

 

[Chris of Arabia]

Unfortunately, moving the bridge would mean that your frets would be in the wrong place and you'd not be able to intonate it - what you'd be doing is re-creating the longer scale but with the wrong fret positioning for it. If you want the shorter scale neck, I'd suggest picking woods that are brighter in tone - maple/ebony rather than rosewood/mahogany. There's a guide on the Warmoth site somewhere, check it out.

 

[kboman]

Chris is right. Moving the bridge means changing the scale length - thus the existing frets would be in the wrong place for the new scale.

 

[Xplorervoodoo]

Wouldn't using higher gauge strings give you increased tension as well?

 

[ByteFrenzy]

He's not moving the bridge, just the tailpiece or the through-body holes, so intonation would not be the problem.

Unfortunately, it's also not going to work. Tone height is a function of the string tension and the VIBRATING length of the string, not the total length. Sorry...

 

[Nando Vallart]

Not possible by Warmoth...


But hey, put thicker strings... If you use .009 you'll go for .010 easy... I suggest .011 or .012  :glasses9:

Welcome to the forum!

 

[jimh]

+1 to thicker strings for more tension.  More tone too!  :icon_thumright:

 

[tfarny]

Going up one gauge of strings (.010 -> .011) is about the same as going up from 24.75 to 25.5, also about the same as the difference between Eb and standard tuning. So, if you like to go down to Eb, that's about the same tension you'll get with a Gibson scale.

 

[mayfly]

+1 - go up a guage and you'll be happy.  11's are not so hard to manipulate with a shorter scale.

If you have trouble bending the B string... you could always get a bender installed 

 

[blue313]

The scale length of the guitar is twice the measurement from the nut to the 12th fret.  No matter what this reads it doesn't make the neck any thinner.  If you have small hands you may want to consider a different back contour and/or nut width instead.

 

[tfarny]

Probably the smallest neck which makes sense is a 1 5/8 nut, 24.75 scale, and standard thin back contour. That would make a very small neck, probably pretty comfortable for you. The only commercial guitar I know of with about those dimensions is a Gibson Melody Maker, I had a 60s model (an actual 66 or something) and the neck was much too small for me.
Warmoth doesn't make wizard contour for the 24.75 scale.

 

[RexTheDog]

Thanks for your help everyone.  Yeh it makes sense that moving the stop tail piece wont affect the tension of the strings now that its been explained to me.  I currently use 10's on my strat and used to use 11's but found they were just a bit too hard to bend.  Im sure on a 24 3/4" scale guitar theyll work fine.

To be more specific the issue is that my hands are quite narrow so stretching across frets on the lower registers is a little difficult for me on my strat.  I completely understand that the scale length wont affect the thickness of the neck.  I actually plan to get a thicker neck with a smaller nut width so i have less distance across the fretboard to travel and more wood to grip in my hand (no pun intended) :icon_biggrin:.

Ive measured the nut width and neck thickness of my strat. Its 0.825" at the first fret and 0.915" at the twelth.  The nut width is an odd size.  I dont remember exactly how wide but it was more then 43mm and less then 44mm.  This is a pre 2006 Highway 1 Strat.

Ive sent warmoth a few emails over the last couple of weeks and turns out theyll do custom neck thicknesses and contours if you ask for it.  Dont know what the starting price is but its doable for anyone whos interested.  Im thinking 0.840" at the first fret and 0.900 at the twelth.  Neck contour i was thinking bout either the boat contour (soft v) or the wolfgang (soft asymetrical).

Once again thanks everyone for helping i really appreciate it!

PS: I was told in order to have a custom neck contour made you have to send them a template.