stupid question about scale length

[ritualhomicide]

hello,

can you install a 35" scale bass neck on a "standard" bass body (joint compatibilty aside).

what determines scale length....the neck or body or both???

(I was thinking a Warmoth standard P-Bass body with a 35" Moses graphite neck.)

thanks!

 

[koshersteel]

Scale length is the distance from the nut to the bridge. The 12th fret has to be in the center of this measurement so it can produce an octave. I'm not familiar with the neck you want to use but assuming the neck pocket was routed correctly it could work. Your probably going to want to find a skilled luthier / repair person to do that mod though.

 

[Dan025]

for a given neck there is a distance from the heel to the bridge saddles that you need. the above post is correct and if you plan to route the neck pocket your self that is what to look for but you need to decide how to get that distance correct. if you modify the joint just enough to mount the neck then you can easily layout the bridge using the distance from the nut to the bridge saddles. if you first want to see if it is posible before you go cutting you can make some sort of template to lay over the body and this is where the heel to bridge measurment will be usefull. measure from the nut to the heal and subtract from 35", well youll need to add some for intonation but i cant remember how much, (sorry in know thats not help full, it's just a rough number as the bridge is adjustable) then you can trace out the heal on paper or plexi or wood, layout the bridge on your template and measure from the heal outline locate the mounting holes and then cut out the neck pocket outline. lay over the body in question and see if there are any problems like a bridge that hangs off the end of the body.

i dont know anything about the mosses necks but if they are designed for a fender body and the words conversion or retro fit are used in the description chances are that they built the neck around the fender neck heel shape and heel to bridge saddle distance and would fit right on a warmoth body with no mods. if this is considered a custom neck or a replacement for another manufacturer then you will need to see if it will fit.

 

[Cagey]

"what determines scale length....the neck or body or both???"

The neck, more than anything. There's a little more to it than whether or not it fits, which involves the body, and where the 12th fret is.

It does need to fit, of course. But, that's usually easy enough to do. The problem is then the frets themselves have to be spaced properly for the scale. Simply centering up the 12th fret isn't enough. You could put a 35" scale neck on a 30" scale body and with some creative routing and drilling, have the 12th fret show up in the right place. But, the spacing between the frets would be wrong. Intonation would be correct at the 12th fret, but nowhere else. Instead of a half step per fret, it would be something more. You'd be forever out of tune.

Warmoth sells what they call "conversion necks", but what makes them that way is they've recalculated the fret spacing to compensate. I've not seen their shop, but it's likely they have what's called a "gang saw" that cuts all the fret slots at once. So, they set up the cutters and spacers for the scale they want, and feed it necks until they don't need to. Change it over to another scale, and do the next batch.

 

[BassmanAK]

Send Moses an E-mail. I found them to be VERY helpful with my ?'s
about the exact same thing for a 5 string. They actually make a Warmoth-specific
neck for the fivers, so I would bet they have a 35 incher for a P-bass, or whatever.
:icon_biggrin:

 

[NQbass7]

You could put a 35" scale neck on a 30" scale body and with some creative routing and drilling, have the 12th fret show up in the right place. But, the spacing between the frets would be wrong.

Well if you did manage to get the 12th fret in the right place (halfway between the nut and bridge)... it would end up being a 35" scale bass and would intonate correctly, right?

 

[Cagey]

Well if you did manage to get the 12th fret in the right place (halfway between the nut and bridge)... it would end up being a 35" scale bass and would intonate correctly, right?

Yeah, the more I think about it, I believe you're right. I suspect you'd have playability problems if you use the exaggerated example I gave, but it ought to intone properly.

 

[tfarny]

Cagey, what are you talking about dude? Bodies don't have "scales." The scale is a function of the fret spacing and where the bridge is. The body has nothing to do with it. The warmoth "conversion" necks adjust the fret spacing to fit to the location of a 25.5 bridge, which is why the Warmoth LP bridge spacing looks a tiny bit weird - it is at the default location of a 25.5 inch neck.

OP: Assuming you could get the neck to fit properly in the pocket, you would need to move the bridge location back, something like about 1/2 inch or less but it would require careful measuring. You could get the body without the bridge routing and do that yourself, or take it to somebody good and get it done. Assuming there is room to move the bridge back, of course.

 

[Cagey]

Cagey, what are you talking about dude? Bodies don't have "scales."

Right. But, they have neck pockets and bridges.

 

[ByteFrenzy]

Wouldn't you have issues with pickup placement and other details? With some basses, sticking a 35" scale neck on a body designed for a 34" scale neck would risk ending up with the bridge sticking out from the body. Inversely, using a shorter neck you would risk getting the bridge uncomfortably close to the bridge PU. I don't believe the good guys at W would have set up tooling for short scale bass bodies if they had been able to just rout the bridge in a different position on the standard bodies to accomodate for the shorter scale. On the other hand, the 30" and 32" necks go on the same bodies, so up to a limit the body can accomodate scale length changes.

 

[NQbass7]

If the neck is made correctly, all that matters for intonation is that the bridge is placed the same distance from the 12th fret as the nut is.  You might run into problems making that happen, but if you can make it happen, you're in the clear.

So when someone talks about a body with a specific scale length, what they mean is that if you put a neck on which is fretted for that scale, and has the standard distance between nut and heel, then it will intonate correctly.  Conversion necks break that part about standard length between nut and heel, thereby changing the distance between nut and bridge without changing the body.