Baritone project

robinbowes

Well, I picked up a GSP conversion neck so decided to build a baritone.

I've also picked up a Guitarbuild body with tort scratch plate, a chrome neck plate, and aged strap buttons. I have a bridge somewhere, and a variety of pickups - might use a set I got from @OilCityPickups set in one of their recent offers.

A couple of questions:

Are these screws long enough:



Next job is to try and align the machine heads:



I'm hoping I can plug the existing holes and re-drill new ones in the right place. Any tips?

R.

Funkfingers

Yes, the neck anchoring screws are long enough. 

Refill the wonky machinehead locator screw holes with cocktail stick sections.

Align the 'heads with a steel straight edge. Start with the two outermost 'heads. Nip them up. Then, get the other four aligned and tightened. 

Drill pilot holes through the screw lugs.

Remove the 'heads. Drill the proper screw holes to the correct depth. (Mark the required depth on the drill bit to avoid going too far.)

Refit all of the hardware. Nip most of the way up so that the straight edge gets 'em aligned. Nip up the hex nuts fully. Fit the little screws at the rear of the headstock.

If you are lucky, your brand of 'heads may have three little points on the hidden face of the gear casing. These leave an indentation in the neck wood, making the 'heads easy to position correctly in the future.

RichAC

Hi, can I ask a couple of questions? I’m curious about this…

1) Is the “conversion neck” simply a longer-than-normal neck that, when paired with a regular guitar, gives a baritone scale length?
2) Why is it necessary to realign the tuners? Is this a consequence of the longer neck?

Thanks 

Sporky

RichAC said:

Hi, can I ask a couple of questions? I’m curious about this…

1) Is the “conversion neck” simply a longer-than-normal neck that, when paired with a regular guitar, gives a baritone scale length?

Yes. Though the geometry gets a bit complex as the bridge and heel are in fixed positions,  so you have to find a scale length that effectively adds one or two extra frets at the nut end without moving any of the others.

robinbowes

RichAC said:

1) Is the “conversion neck” simply a longer-than-normal neck that, when paired with a regular guitar, gives a baritone scale length?

@Sporky already answered this.

RichAC said:

2) Why is it necessary to realign the tuners? Is this a consequence of the longer neck?

Because whoever put them on was either blind or drunk or both! Nothing to do with the longer neck - they're just not fitted straight!

R.

robinbowes

Funkfingers said:

Yes, the neck anchoring screws are long enough. 

Refill the wonky machinehead locator screw holes with cocktail stick sections.

Align the 'heads with a steel straight edge. Start with the two outermost 'heads. Nip them up. Then, get the other four aligned and tightened. 

Drill pilot holes through the screw lugs.

Remove the 'heads. Drill the proper screw holes to the correct depth. (Mark the required depth on the drill bit to avoid going too far.)

Refit all of the hardware. Nip most of the way up so that the straight edge gets 'em aligned. Nip up the hex nuts fully. Fit the little screws at the rear of the headstock.

If you are lucky, your brand of 'heads may have three little points on the hidden face of the gear casing. These leave an indentation in the neck wood, making the 'heads easy to position correctly in the future.

Thanks for the detailed tips.

The machine heads do indeed have the three points:



I'm still quite amused how wonky they were!

The machine heads are the locking type MH606 from Axetec: https://www.axetec.co.uk/guitar_parts_uk_037.htm

RichAC

robinbowes said:

RichAC said:

2) Why is it necessary to realign the tuners? Is this a consequence of the longer neck?

Because whoever put them on was either blind or drunk or both! Nothing to do with the longer neck - they're just not fitted straight!

R.

Ah, yes. I see that now! 

robinbowes

Next question is about fitting the neck.

Do I fit the bridge first, and put top and bottom strings on to ensure the neck is aligned correctly?

This is what the heel looks like:



You can just about the the four indents from the screws pushed through the body. They seem to be pretty much where the previous (filled) holes were. Any idea what the markings are?

The splits on the heel are concerning, but will hopefully be OK. Here's an end view:



R.

GSPBASSES

Obviously the GSP is my stamp, don't know what the other marking are, certainly not mine. The cracks in the heel look like somebody used oversize screws, must've been very oversize, to split rock Maple that's flat sawn is very difficult.  I doubt if the cracks will get any worse as the fingerboard will help to hold it all together.

robinbowes

GSPBASSES said:

Obviously the GSP is my stamp, don't know what the other marking are, certainly not mine. The cracks in the heel look like somebody used oversize screws, must've been very oversize, to split rock Maple that's flat sawn is very difficult.  I doubt if the cracks will get any worse as the fingerboard will help to hold it all together.

Thanks for the reassurance!

R.

WezV

Sporky said:

RichAC said:

Hi, can I ask a couple of questions? I’m curious about this…

1) Is the “conversion neck” simply a longer-than-normal neck that, when paired with a regular guitar, gives a baritone scale length?

Yes. Though the geometry gets a bit complex as the bridge and heel are in fixed positions,  so you have to find a scale length that effectively adds one or two extra frets at the nut end without moving any of the others.

That's the easy way.  You simply take the known scale length like 25.5" and extend it by working backwards with the same maths.   A 28 5/8" conversion neck adds 2 frets at the nut end to the existing fender 25.5" scale.  You could also do a 27"  just by adding one fret. 

You can go the other way and just pick the scale length you want and work backwards for the bridge location.   Any scale length will work. The frets don't have to align with the previous scale length

robinbowes

I treated myself to a new toy to make sure I can drill holes accurately:



The first job I did with it was to customise the drill press table so I could secure it without using the clumsy clamps!

Next job, refit the tuners to the baritone neck, and re-drill the holes to attach the neck to the body.

R.

JGTay

robinbowes said:

Any idea what the markings are?

The other markings could be from part of a bank card someone used as a neck shim... 

robinbowes

JGTay said:

robinbowes said:

Any idea what the markings are?

The other markings could be from part of a bank card someone used as a neck shim... 

Heh, good thought. It does look like that.

R.

robinbowes

Bit of progress this evening.

I received an offcut of maple from DartmoorHedgehog (thanks!) and made some 10mm plugs with a plug cutter:



I then drilled 10mm holes in the heel of the neck and glued in the plugs:



Next job: cut off the excess and sand flat.

After that I will:

1. re-fit the tuners (making sure they're all aligned correctly)
2. drill the holes for the trem screws in the body
3. fit the trem/bridge
4. align the neck with a couple of strings and drill new holes in the right place
5. Fit the neck.

R.

GSPBASSES

I should think with those plugs in place there's no way to split's in the Maple would get any worse.

robinbowes

GSPBASSES said:

I should think with those plugs in place there's no way to split's in the Maple would get any worse.

I hope not!

R.

robinbowes

Of all the problems I expected to run into with this build, this was not one of them:



The screw on the back of the tuner snapped as I tightened it up.

Hopefully, I'll be able to extract the screw without needing to drill it out.

R.

robinbowes

Well, I made an utter bollock of a job of dealing with the broken screw. I managed to make an overly large hole getting broken bit out, so decided to drill a large hole and put a plug in it. Then when I tried to chisel off the plug it broke off below the surface of the headstock.



Not sure what to do here. There's enough wood to get the tuner screw into, it just looks a mess.

Bah!

Funkfingers

WezV said:

Sporky said:

you have to find a scale length that effectively adds one or two extra frets at the nut end without moving any of the others.

That's the easy way.  

You simply take the known scale length like 25.5" and extend it by working backwards with the same maths.   A 28 5/8" conversion neck adds 2 frets at the nut end to the existing fender 25.5" scale.  You could also do a 27"  just by adding one fret. 

I am about to do exactly this with a Fender MIM Classic Player Stratocaster body and baritone neck. The first fret on the conversion neck aligns exactly with where the nut was on the original 25.5" neck. 

The same phenomenon can be observed when comparing a Jaguar and Jazzmaster side by side.

robinbowes said:

The screw on the back of the tuner snapped as I tightened it up.

Now you know why those are called cheese head screws. 

robinbowes

My next dilemma - what bridge.

The body is a Strat body, with 6-holes for the trem screws, but they're not fully drilled yet:


I have a couple of trem bridges that would fit, but will a trem work on a baritone, or would I need to block it off? Should I just get a hardtail bridge?

R.