24 fret to 22 fret conversion - or would I hit the truss rod?

[ginsambo]

Has anyone ever routed off the heel of a 24 fret Dinky neck to make it a coventional length or would you hit the truss rod or cavity?

[toejam]

RobRR has done that to a couple of necks.

[ginsambo]

Great, Thought it'd be possible as the truss rods are only a standard length, surely. Thanks!

[sully]

You’re planning on cutting off the last two frets and reshaping the butt of the neck so that it’d be a 22 fret neck, right? Depending on how much you have to take off, you may be okay. I have an old US Jackson neck that for some reason had the rounded portion of the butt end removed. An assectomy, if you will. It was about ¼” off of the end (you could see the original glue line on the underside of the fretboard), and the truss rod wasn’t exposed.

I’m not sure where Jackson gets their truss rods, but the dual action ones that I use are 18” long from end to end. To be on the safe side, you could, I guess, measure 18 ½” inches from the end of the adjustment nut and as long as you’ve still got some neck left (I presume you will), you should be okay. The only other thing that comes to mind is where the transition from the heel to the backshape portion of the neck is; that’s usually done around 3 ½” north of the edge of the butt, and usually ends at the 3’ mark. Since the neck pockets are 3’ deep at their longest point, it may look a little odd. Granted, if the transition to the backshape is done at a higher point than 3 ½”, you mayhave enough to work with.

[toejam]

Great, Thought it'd be possible as the truss rods are only a standard length, surely. Thanks!

Hopefully Rob will chime in, as I can't seem to find any of his old posts about it at the moment.

[ginsambo]

Thanks yeah, was planning to put it on a body made from stratch and rout the pocket to fit so it doesn't matter that much. I'm guessing it would be a bit of a gap otherwise, due to the taper. Wondering if it would feel a bit less broad across the fretboard if the end of the heels on 24 fret Dinkys are the same as on 22 fret ones. Never played a 24 fret Dinky.

Thanks for the trussrod info!

Oh yeah rear contour, didn't think about that, I'II have a look at some.

[sully]

The heel widths should be the same at their respective ends, so it'll be narrower at the 22nd on your conversion than an original 22 fret neck. If you're putting it on a scratch body after you do the conversion, you'll be fine (as you've mentioned).