Short scale Strat neck conversion

grappagreen

Hi all,

Could do with a bit of advice. I'm toying with the idea of having a 25" scale neck made for a Strat type guitar. I've got small hands and I want a neck that's similar to a PRS I have made. The current neck is a bit chunky for my smaller digits and the PRS neck seems perfect.

Excuse my ignorance but is it then a matter of just adjusting the intonation to suit i.e. the bridge can stay where it is etc? Do the saddles move backwards or forwards. Just want to be sure that I'm not going to run into problems around bridge position or running out of saddle adjustment etc.

Appreciate any insights.

Si

stickyfiddle

Yep. As long as you get a "conversion neck" that should be made so the bridge is still in the right place, and you just need to check the intonation. 

I have one from USACG on my Cabronita Tele and it works very well.

paulnb57

If its a CONVERSION neck then it will all be fine.....the intonation might need fine tuning......make sure your maker is aware its a conversion neck.............anything else (e.g. a 25inch scale neck) would require the bridge relocating...
Ive got a Squier Strat that is 24inch scale, they obviously used a conversion neck as it works on a 25.5inch Strat

grappagreen

Thanks all.

In the spirit of edification what's the difference between a normal and conversion neck?

Si

MtB

Watching this thread with interest. I've mover to a Jaguar as it's 24" scale, and find it more comfortable to play. Could you bolt a Jag neck onto a strat body?

stickyfiddle

grappagreen said:

Thanks all.

In the spirit of edification what's the difference between a normal and conversion neck?

Si

A "conversion neck" is one specifically made so that if fitted to a regular Strat or Tele with the normal neck pocket and bridge geometry it will have the frets in the right place for the distance between the neck pocket and the bridge.

Any other neck (e.g a Jaguar, which is 24" scale) may have been built to some other dimensions that may have a different distance between neck pocket and bridge, so it's not guaranteed that it will work. 

Funkfingers

MtB said:

Could you bolt a Jag neck onto a strat body?

ICBM once posted in another thread that Jaguar and Jazzmaster necks are interchangeable. The extra inch and a bit of scale length on the Jazzmaster neck is exactly the distance from the first fret to the nut. 

If you compared two twenty-one fret Stratocaster necks of 25.5" and 24.0" scale, respectively, the latter would require a fingerboard extension to accommodate the highest fret. (This might interfere with dropping in the pickguard and electronics assembly.)

SteveRobinson

Is 1/2" over the whole scale length going to make that much difference?

Why not try a Strat neck with a slimmer profle first?

Funkfingers

SteveRobinson said:

Is 1/2" over the whole scale length going to make that much difference?

That half inch is the difference between a Stratocaster and, say, a PRS CU/CE. 

I cannot think of a single occasion when I have changed between these two guitar types and thought, “eff me, this scale length is cramping my fretting hand.”

Fender Strat to Jaguar or Mustang, I do notice but it takes very little time to acclimatise to the ride and get on with playing.

•

It has been my experience that guitarists with markedly smaller hands have to find non-standard ways to finger some chord and riff shapes. This increases their chances of creating original sounding music.

grappagreen

@funkfingers - you may have bigger hands and longer fingers than I do.... it is pretty noticeable to me hence the reason I'm happy to throw some money are it!

Corvus

I like 25" for my own builds over Fender or Gibson scales, latter gets cramped up top and 25.5 feels too spaced sometimes. Definitely noticeable going from 25.5 to 25 for my mitts.

ICBM

Funkfingers said:

MtB said:

Could you bolt a Jag neck onto a strat body?

ICBM once posted in another thread that Jaguar and Jazzmaster necks are interchangeable. The extra inch and a bit of scale length on the Jazzmaster neck is exactly the distance from the first fret to the nut.

No I didn’t! Because they aren’t...

The only directly interchangeable Fender necks are the 24”-scale Jaguar, Mustang, Duo-Sonic II etc, and the 22.5” - not 25.5” - Duo-Sonic, Musicmaster etc.

As you say, the difference between the 24” and 25.5” scales is the fret at the *nut* end, so the distance from the neck pocket to the bridge is different and they are not compatible.

For a Jazzmaster neck to fit on a Jaguar body it would actually need 23 frets - the 22 of the Jag plus the extra one at the nut. The neck pocket is much closer to the bridge on the Jag.

Funkfingers said:

SteveRobinson said:

Is 1/2" over the whole scale length going to make that much difference?

That half inch is the difference between a Stratocaster and, say, a PRS CU/CE. 

I cannot think of a single occasion when I have changed between these two guitar types and thought, “eff me, this scale length is cramping my fretting hand.”

Fender Strat to Jaguar or Mustang, I do notice but it takes very little time to acclimatise to the ride and get on with playing.

I have small hands with a very poor reach and I really don’t notice the difference - I’ve used both a Strat and a Jaguar as my main gigging guitars and never been aware of having to adjust to them.

I also play bass, so maybe I’m just used to moving my hand instead of stretching. I’m actually far more sensitive to the neck profile and the position relative to the body than I am to the scale length.

prowla

The distance from the nut to the 12th fret should be the same as from the 12th fret to the bridge.