Building a guitar... Tapered neck?

[RRVJAH]

about 2 years ago work slowed down at my company. At the time the company was run a little different and the boss asked us if we could stay busy. After cleaning the shop and organizing it about 5 times we basically ran out of things to do. The company is one that doesn't like to give you time off even if they are slow and you haven't requested it in advance. So the question was asked, " what do we do now?" this reply put a huge grin on my face, " Just stay busy, I don't care what you do." Well I took that phrase to heart at the time and started to build a sheet metal guitar.


I finished the body and neck but then never did anything else with it until a couple of weeks ago. I just finished Bluing the metal today... these are camera phone pics so they don't give the full effect of how awesome blued metal looks.



I also picked up the wood for my fingerboard/Fretboard this weekend. I chose Bloodwood and I am cutting it down tomorrow to fit the neck. I will then use a fret saw to cut the fret grooves in for the fret wire and begin the work on that. I still have to order all of that online though.

My question is other than being easier to play chords on and move up and down the neck, why is the neck tapered from the bridge end to the head? while building this guitar I thought I had thought out all aspects of what I needed to do for this guitar except for one thing, I did not taper the neck. it is a straight 2.062 down the line. This is no problem for playing but I am wondering if it will effect the harmonics at all. I have the fret dimensions using the formula to calculate them considering the bridge length will be 31.5 to the nut vs. my Jackson Guitars which are about 25.5 to the nut.

so will the non-tapered neck effect anything other than the feel of the guitar for playing? which I don't mind btw, it will be more slightly like a classical feel then a electric.

[dg]

Over that length, the difference in string length between a non-tapered neck and one tapered for a more common nut width would be so tiny that it shouldn't affect fret spacing calculations or hurt your ability to intonate the guitar, imo. Someone less lazy than me can do the math if they want, but I think we're talking about a difference of thousandths to maybe low-hundredths of an inch in overall length for a given string.

[JACKSONFREAK]

The only thing i see is. The bridge is goin to have to go way behind the enlarged sound hole. Which may throw off the scale length from standard 25.5 for an acoustic. This would would almpst make it 27in scale length (according to appearance in the pics) Making it a baritone acoustic. Which is cool. But think about where the bridge will go. Before you put the finger board on. By tapered neck do you mean the difference in width from the nut end to the body end of the neck? The widening of the finger board is to keep the string spacing proper from nut to bridge. If you want to tpaer the neck just shave a bit off the nut end up the neck in a slight angle making the nut end narrower than the body end. Then put the finger board on with the same taper. A typical nut width is 1 11/16 to 1 3/4 for some acoustics. Good luck looks cool so far.
Gil

[dg]

I think it's all made of hollow sheetmetal, Gil, so it is what it is. I assume he's either going to cut his own nut or have it done for this width. Scale length is going to be 31.5", according to what he said.

[RRVJAH]

I think it's all made of hollow sheetmetal, Gil, so it is what it is. I assume he's either going to cut his own nut or have it done for this width. Scale length is going to be 31.5", according to what he said.

you are right. From the bridge to the nut it will be 31.5" I know this is way off from any traditional guitar. Honestly it was meant to be something to piddle around with but it came out really good and I decided to make it a pretty decent guitar, or try to at least.

The guitar is all hollow sheet metal except for the head which is 1/4" plate and at the base of the neck where the neck was attached that is a solid block of steel so when it was welded there was no warping. The neck is made of 12 gauge steel and was broke up hollow to give the guitar some extra amplification , the neck is not 100% sealed off either to the body so it will allow sound to travel through it. the body is 14 gauge steel and is re-enforced for the bridge.

The taper I was talking about is the width from the top of the nut that starts skinnier than the width at the bottom of the fingerboard . so if it is to keep the spacing proper from the bridge to the nut , would this just be to work with standard nut ? if I use a standard bridge but cut my own nut to fit my neck do you see an issue with the harmonics?


here is what I have for the fret spacing if anyone was interested.


1 Bridge to first fret 29.73204 nut to 1st fret 1.76796
2 Bridge to second fret 28.06331 1st fret to 2nd 1.66873
3 Bridge to third fret 26.48824 2nd to 3rd 1.57507
4 Bridge to fourth fret 25.00157 3rd to 4th 1.48667
5 Bridge to fifth fret 23.59834 4th to 5th 1.40323
6 Bridge to sixth fret 22.27386 5th to 6th 1.32447
7 Bridge to seventh fret 21.02373 6th to 7th 1.25014
8 Bridge to eighth fret 19.84376 7th to 8th 1.17997
9 Bridge to ninth fret 18.73001 8th to 9th 1.11374
10 Bridge to tenth fret 17.67878 9th to 10th 1.05123
11 Bridge to eleventh fret 16.68654 10th to 11th 0.99223
12 Bridge to 12th fret 15.75 11th to 12th 0.93654
13 bridge to 13th fret 14.86602 12th to 13th 0.88398
14 bridge to 14th fret 14.03165 13th to 14th 0.83437
15 bridge to 15th fret 13.24412 14th to 15th 0.78754
16 bridge to 16th fret 12.50078 15th to 16th 0.74334
17 bridge to 17th fret 11.79917 16th to 17th 0.70162
18 bridge to 18th fret 11.13693 17th to 18th 0.66224
19 bridge to 19th fret 10.51186 18th to 19th 0.62507
20 bridge to 20th fret 9.92188 19th to 20th 0.58999
21 bridge to 21st fret 9.36501 20th to 21st 0.55687
22 bridge to 22nd fret 8.83939 21st to 22nd 0.52562
23 bridge to 23rd fret 8.34327 22nd to 23rd 0.49612
24 bridge to 24th fret 7.875 23rd to 24th 0.46827
25 bridge to 25th fret 7.43301 24th to 25th 0.44199
26 bridge to 26th fret 7.01583 25th to 26th 0.41718
27 bridge to 27th fret 6.62206 26th to 27th 0.39377
28 bridge to 28th fret 6.25039 27th to 28th 0.37167
29 bridge to 29th fret 5.89958 28th to 29th 0.35081
30 bridge to 30th fret 5.56847 29th to 30th 0.33112
31 bridge to 31st fret 5.25593 30th to 31st 0.31253


Thanks for the input so far! This is the first time I have tried a guitar from scratch so I am still learning as I go.

[texasfury]

why not build guitar parts and sell em? we could use either 1) a $50 floyd rose copy that is equal in quality to a real FR or 2) a strat trem with fine tuners on it.

[RRVJAH]

why not build guitar parts and sell em? we could use either 1) a $50 floyd rose copy that is equal in quality to a real FR or 2) a strat trem with fine tuners on it.

It has crossed my mind many times. with the way the economy is and with as busy as I am at the moment, it would kill me. I bounce back and fourth between too many hobbies.