aka: Spencer
Silverangel Econo A #429
Soliver #001 & #002: A double stack of Pancakes.
Soliver Hand Crafted Mandolins and Mandolin Armrests
Armrests Here -- Mandolins Here
"You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage
to lose sight of the shore, ...and also a boat with no holes in it.” -anonymous
Looks great! Good job!
Since this was a classical guitar, are you going to be using nylon strings?
I am a luthier specialising in historical and world stringed instruments. You can see more info at my website.
aka: Spencer
Silverangel Econo A #429
Soliver #001 & #002: A double stack of Pancakes.
Soliver Hand Crafted Mandolins and Mandolin Armrests
Armrests Here -- Mandolins Here
"You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage
to lose sight of the shore, ...and also a boat with no holes in it.” -anonymous
Looking great!
So I finished a little side project making a counter top for my in-laws and got back to the CTG (Classical Tenor Guitar) yesterday and so far I've:
Leveled and crowned (& polishes) the frets
Cut and fitted the nut and nut slots
Made a new bridge (walnut) and fit the saddle.
All I have a pic of at this point is the bridge
Tonight I hope to set the intonation
By the way, I totally overlooked the segment of the stewmac fret calculator that says:
"The most accurate way to lay out your scale is making all measurements from the nut (using the "fret to fret" distance only to confirm your layout). Laying out frets only by measuring fret to fret will compound error. For example, if you're laying out frets by marking with a scribe and your accuracy is ± (plus or minus) 0.020", you could be off by as much as 1/4" at the 12th fret."
So the scale length has turned out to be more like 21.5" rather than 22"
Rookie mistake, but I think it's still going to work out fine.
aka: Spencer
Silverangel Econo A #429
Soliver #001 & #002: A double stack of Pancakes.
Soliver Hand Crafted Mandolins and Mandolin Armrests
Armrests Here -- Mandolins Here
"You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage
to lose sight of the shore, ...and also a boat with no holes in it.” -anonymous
aka: Spencer
Silverangel Econo A #429
Soliver #001 & #002: A double stack of Pancakes.
Soliver Hand Crafted Mandolins and Mandolin Armrests
Armrests Here -- Mandolins Here
"You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage
to lose sight of the shore, ...and also a boat with no holes in it.” -anonymous
aka: Spencer
Silverangel Econo A #429
Soliver #001 & #002: A double stack of Pancakes.
Soliver Hand Crafted Mandolins and Mandolin Armrests
Armrests Here -- Mandolins Here
"You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage
to lose sight of the shore, ...and also a boat with no holes in it.” -anonymous
Now that I'm stuck inside and working from home (right next to my shop), I got down a scrap Hondo 23" scale steel string guitar with a classical headstock and started thinking again about this project. Mine is ladder braced, and was a tailpiece guitar from the start, so most of my work would be on the neck. I wondered how your tenor is holding up these past three months? Are you ready to share a video sample with us?
One other question I had was about the headstock. You plugged the slots near the top holes, but the headstock still looks a little big for the neck to me. I've thought about just cutting the headstock down to just the center strip and then glueing ears on. I could then add a veneer and shape it to be a bit smaller. I have some old 1960s Harmony banjo/tenor guitar tuners I was planning to use, so I want to switch to a paddle-style headstock instead of the classical. I guess alternatively I could fill the headstock slots and then shape the headstock smaller, which would keep the outer bits of the original headstock.
Tenor guitar owners: what's the average length/width of your tenor headstocks?
TL;DR so maybe this was covered. Why not a 6 string tenor? F C G D A E? Don't have to replace bridge, do have to recut nut, don't have to trim neck, nobody will ask to borrow your guitar. All wins.
Well, the first answer for me is that I never thought of it! Second answer is that I'm so used to mandolins that a 6-string neck feels very chunky to me a lot of the time. But it would be a great way to try out tenor tuning. (Too late for my donor guitar: I cut the neck down last night.)
Well, inspired by Spencer, I knocked together a little tenor conversion from a 23" guitar that I had in my "parts bin." I decided to do it only with stuff I had around the shop, so I used a leftover piece of brass to make a tailpiece, refretted with fretwire I already had in stock, and used my plug cutter to make maple dot inlays for the dyed mahogany fretboard. It got torn up a bit on the top where the fretboard was thinned, but overall I think it turned out okay. I cut my headstock shorter than Spencer's because I didn't have any fancy wood laying around, just chalkboard paint!
My donor guitar is ladder braced and has a steel rod in the "Spanish cedar" neck, so I went with steel, 32w, 24w, 13, 9 for CGDA. Sounds okay! Once I figure out how to play it a little better I'll post a sound video.
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