Body Size of Electric Tenor Guitars?

[Ed Goist]

A question mostly for builders, by I'd love to hear the opinions of players on this too:

When making a 23" scale tenor version of a classic electric guitar (Les Paul, SG, ES335, Tele, Strat, etc.) would/do you use the same body dimensions as for a full scale instrument (and just adjust the size of the neck pocket to fit the tenor neck), or would/do you scale the entire body down very slightly?

Since the 23" scale is only 7% shorter than the standard Gibson scale and 10% shorter than the standard Fender scale, I can see arguments on both sides. Doing a little research, it looks like some builders use the full body size while some others downscale very slightly. Oh, and it looks like pretty much all builders retain the body depth of the full scale instruments.

Is there a tonal/performance reason to choose one of these options over the other?

[Ed Goist]

I probably should have posted this in the electric sub-forum. If a moderator sees this, a thread move would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Jayyj]

To me, if it's a six string design that is fairly compact anyway, if you scale it down further it starts feeling a bit toy like. For the larger electrics such as the 335 a scaled version sounds interesting, and the first time I saw a 339 my first thought was "great opportunity for a tenor". Gibson, if you're looking for ideas for guitar of the month... Joel at Ernest instruments has a photo of an ES-125 3/4 tenor conversion on his website which looks absolutely great, far better than the full bodied custom Gibson tenors that occasionally show up.

I think the original SG and Les Paul tenors look pretty good but then I'm used to seeing them so the small necks look normal. On my SG build although I used a pre-shaped full size body I did quite a lot of re-profiling to the cutaways to blend the neck in - which I imagine is exactly what Gibson would have done when they got an order for an SG tenor in the 60s. The Les Pauls look like they were just standard bodies with a tenor neck fitted, although they look pretty decent anyway. The ES-330 and ES-345 guitars look like they would have taken quite a lot of extra work to convert them into tenors as the cutaways blend neatly into the tenor neck.

Generally I don't like the look of many of the conversions I've seen where a tenor neck is mounted into a six string body - the proportions look ungainly and unattractive. If I were going for a Strat / Tele design I'd certainly want to blend the narrower neck into the design rather than start with a stock six string body. Scaling a Tele down by 10% is something I've toyed with trying for a tenor, or alternatively starting with a standard template and removing a wedge from the middle so that the lower bout was standard but the upper bout slightly narrower. The slightly smaller and shorter scale Duo-Sonic is a great platform for a tenor, as Warren Ellis obviously spotted when working with Eastwood on his tenor.

Saw Warren last night by the way - no tenor in sight but great to see him back with Dirty Three again. Absolutely awesome, as always.

[GD Armstrong]

I usually use a smaller body designed for tenors oe octave mandolins but for custom orders where the customer wants a Tele/Les Paul/335 shape I shrink the standard size by about 10 - 12 %. I really like the 335 shrunk by 12% for a tenor.

[FL Dawg]

For me it would depend on a lot of factors. Which design will you use, what will the headstock look like, that sort of thing. Most manufacturers just used a standard sized body because that's what they had as a starting point. That's what you see on the Les Paul Special tenors from the 50's and the old Gibson TG-00 and TG-0 guitars. Martin's 0-17T and 0-18T used a slightly smaller body size that still looks and sounds good. But when it gets too small like a size 5 then I think that's too much.

[s11141827]

To me, if it's a six string design that is fairly compact anyway, if you scale it down further it starts feeling a bit toy like. For the larger electrics such as the 335 a scaled version sounds interesting, and the first time I saw a 339 my first thought was "great opportunity for a tenor". Gibson, if you're looking for ideas for guitar of the month... Joel at Ernest instruments has a photo of an ES-125 3/4 tenor conversion on his website which looks absolutely great, far better than the full bodied custom Gibson tenors that occasionally show up.

I think the original SG and Les Paul tenors look pretty good but then I'm used to seeing them so the small necks look normal. On my SG build although I used a pre-shaped full size body I did quite a lot of re-profiling to the cutaways to blend the neck in - which I imagine is exactly what Gibson would have done when they got an order for an SG tenor in the 60s. The Les Pauls look like they were just standard bodies with a tenor neck fitted, although they look pretty decent anyway. The ES-330 and ES-345 guitars look like they would have taken quite a lot of extra work to convert them into tenors as the cutaways blend neatly into the tenor neck.

Generally I don't like the look of many of the conversions I've seen where a tenor neck is mounted into a six string body - the proportions look ungainly and unattractive. If I were going for a Strat / Tele design I'd certainly want to blend the narrower neck into the design rather than start with a stock six string body. Scaling a Tele down by 10% is something I've toyed with trying for a tenor, or alternatively starting with a standard template and removing a wedge from the middle so that the lower bout was standard but the upper bout slightly narrower. The slightly smaller and shorter scale Duo-Sonic is a great platform for a tenor, as Warren Ellis obviously spotted when working with Eastwood on his tenor.

Saw Warren last night by the way - no tenor in sight but great to see him back with Dirty Three again. Absolutely awesome, as always.

A Tenor Guitar is basically a Tenor Banjo Neck on a Guitar Body so the Original Versions look like so.