Travel guitar - thoughts

[Steve St.Laurent]

Been thinking about building a travel guitar for quite some time.  I've looked at what's out there and am not really happy with any of the off the shelf offerings.  Also, being completely spoiled with Warmoth I can't see not having the same comfort/feel with my travel guitar.  So - I think I've come up with a good solution and figured I'd run it through the brain trust here before moving forward with it.  I've attached a mockup.  Basically I'm going to start with roughly a tele shape but shortened length wise and with the top horns cut down and the cutout made deeper so that I can access the 24th fret better.  24 fret neck and using a Steinberger style headless adapter for the ball end of the strings (pic attached).  Then for the bridge using a TOM style bridge and use these Steinberger tuners ( http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tuners/Guitar,_solid_peghead_tuners/Steinberger_Gearless_Tuners.html ) that just go straight up.  Route out a cavity on the back side of the body for the tuner knobs so that they are recessed in the body and then the part of the tuner that the strings attach to will stick out the top of the body below the TOM bridge (they are black on my mockup). 

Another option would be to use the Steinberger bridge: http://headlessusa.com/6-string-tremolo.htm or there are cheap knockoffs that are fixed bridges - but looking at the pics of them the quality kind of scares me.  I'm not concerned with having a tremolo on my travel guitar and kind of like the idea of having it be a little more rugged.  Those gearless tuners look to me like they would be a lot more robust and less to go wrong.  I thought about using regular locking tuners as well but when I mocked it up there doesn't look to be enough room to fit them in (2 lines of 3 L/R tuners).

I'll probably embed something like a vox headphone amp into the back side of the body which is why I like have a slightly larger tele shaped body.  I'll be able to switch to the headphone amp or to a regular output to an amplifier - it would just be nice to have it all built right in for practicing. 

Don't pay attention to the body finish or fretboard, etc.  I was just doing a quick mockup in photoshop to get the general shape, etc and see how it would work out.  Also, this is the full width body top to bottom with the curves at their appropriate places and sizes so it should feel pretty close when sitting and playing with it on my leg, etc.  I'm really looking for something that is going to play/feel like a full size guitar but be easier to carry around when traveling - tossing in the trunk of my mustang, etc.

 

[LushTone]

Very interesting.  :guitaristgif:

 

[swarfrat]

For a travel guitar, i think I'd focus on :
Trying to keep a reasonable scale length intact. Like maybe 24"
Cut down the body length - in order to keep your contact points (knee rest, elboy rest, strap points, consider making them folding/removable/etc...

 

[LushTone]

I think a Carvin neck through neck would be a great start for this venture.

 

[swarfrat]

Would that make it a "neck up-to" or a "neck instead of". Drill holes in the  neck blank. Mount knee and elbow rest on dowels.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Here's my mockup with a shadow of a full size tele behind it.  I'd rather keep the neck full sized - an inch and a half isn't going to make that big of a difference in the size of the instrument.  As you can see from this mockup it's already significantly smaller while maintaining the same cutout positions for feel.  The only difference in feel would be where my right forearm is resting on the body and I think I can adjust to that.

What about the hardware - the tuners I'm looking at, etc?

 

[Jet-Jaguar]

I have a travel guitar that I bought cheap from a guy on a forum.  Today, I played it in my car on my lunchbreak. It's a brownsville, identical to this Hofner except for the bridge:

On mine, the wrap-around bridge is not intonatable. I put an Duncan P-rails in it and it sounds nice, when it's in tune.

I think you're right about going headless, as I have to open the window to play mine in the car. Haven't used the Steinbergers, so I can't speak to their quality. I wonder if the angle between bridge and tuner would be too shallow, not to mention that the body is thicker than the headstock, so you'd need to thin it out there.

Have you seen the Travelers brand? They're headless, and they have tuners that come up through the back:

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Yeah, I've seen the traveler guitars - but I don't like the way the strings have to wrap around the bottom and then come up to the tuners - and where the tuners are placed.  Negates being able to anchor my hand on the body.  Plus it's a lot more complicated than it seems to need to be. 

I will have to route out the back side of the body - which is all part of the plan.  Those tuners will be inset inside of the body (just a small window on the back).  But it's just a knob that sticks straight out unlike a normal tuner so I'll just be able to twist it.  Those tuners can handle a headstock to the thickness of 43/64th (.665) so I'll just thin the body at that point to that thickness (which will give me the window for the knob on the tuner to sit inside the body. 

The way the strings go into these tuners they go in right at the very base of the tuner and I'm going to place them in the same basic location as the string through ferrules would be on a TOM mount so it seems like the angle would have to be good enough - it would be the same angle as it would be with a string through ferrule on the body.

 

[LushTone]

That's a cool idea for the tuners.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Well, I ordered the tuners today and an SX Furrian el cheapo $100 telecaster to hack apart and do a proof of concept.  I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier but I'm going to try and just use top and bottom ferrules on the headstock for the ball end of the strings rather then spending the extra on the headless adapter up there.  If it doesn't work then I'll convert over to the adapter and see what happens.  I should be able to dig into it next weekend and see how it goes.

 

[Jet-Jaguar]

I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier but I'm going to try and just use top and bottom ferrules on the headstock for the ball end of the strings rather then spending the extra on the headless adapter up there.

I thought about that, but then I thought the adapter looked cooler. 

Myself, I'm going to try one of these amps that's the size of a pack of cigarettes (and that's including the speaker.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydvH0NC_gXs

 

[Jet-Jaguar]

  I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier but I'm going to try and just use top and bottom ferrules on the headstock for the ball end of the strings rather then spending the extra on the headless adapter up there. 

Wait, I just thought of this: If you're going to use the headstock for the ferrules, why not just put the tuners there? That way, you wouldn't have to thin out the bottom of body for the tuners there. Would the tuners take up any more space than the ferrules?

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Putting the tuners at the top would add about an inch to the length.  The Furrian is supposed to arrive tomorrow and the tuners and ferrules arrived yesterday so I should be making some wood chips this weekend  :headbang:.

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

Was this the 24" scale Furrian or the full scale?

Also, what's your plan for the headstock placement of the ferrules - will you just have a straight line parallel to the nut or will you angle it at all?  Obviously, for a proof of concept project & $100 guitar, you don't need to have it be beautiful; I'm curious to see what you come up with.

For my headless bass, I'm 99% settled on something like the Kubicki Ex-Factor "headstock" shape, which looks like a neat way to anchor the strings in a much smaller space than a regular headstock, without looking too square-ish.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Full scale for the furrian.  Not 100% decided on how I'm going to finish off the top.  On the furrian it's not going to matter because I'm not going to cut it down.  Just going to setup the ferrules and tuners and prove out that it works and then I'm going to give the guitar away to someone that wants to play but can't afford to buy one.  I'm leaning towards a slight angle coming to a soft point on one side for the real thing.

 

[ihavenothingprofoundtosay]

So will you just move the ferrules to the tuner holes once you take them out?  I could see that looking pretty dang cool.  Leaving them empty + drilling ferrule holes might look odd, but looking foward to seeing your work either way.  :icon_thumright:

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

On this first one when I'm done testing the original bridge and tuners will go back in it and the ferruls will be there on the headstock too.  Probably just put a sticker over the tuner holes in the body.  I'm going to give it to someone after all.

On the real build the headstock will be cut off.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Spent some time laying things out now that all the parts are here.  Total length will be 30 inches which is 8 1/2 inches shorter than a tele.  I played around with a drawing in sketch up to lay it out.  Here's the drawing

 

[Torment Leaves Scars]

My wife got me a Martin "Backpacker" for Xmas.  It plays like a Martin and doesn't sound too bad, either.  While it's a strange shape and even a bit small on the body, the tone is better than what the shape may suggest.  The only complaint I have about it is that you will need to use the strap, otherwise you'll be muting notes on your leg.  :tard:

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Since I'm actually building now I've moved this over to the work in progress forum and will post updates there - http://www.unofficialwarmoth.com/index.php?topic=21608.0 .  Just posted pictures of the finished prototype body with the bridge and tuners mounted.