Heartstrings

[mikej]

I`m new to this forum and pretty new to computers too, don`t know guite what I`m doing yet. I just got back into playing the guitar after a 35 year absence and found I could no longer play the brand of guitar that I had back in High School, a Stratocaster. The long length was giving me tendonitis in my elbow and wrist, didn`t find any other brands locally that were any better so decided to design and build my own. I was able to come up with one that was quite a bit shorter than the Strat and it cured the problem. I enjoyed the experience so much that I took the decision to build them fulltime. I was wondering if anyone else has encountered the same problem with their joints from playing. If anyone would like to see a picture of my design go to
heartstringguitars.com and let me know what you think. I`m currently designing a double cutaway model that will have much greater access to the upper frets. It always bugged me that the last 6 or so frets were so difficult to play so I designed a new pickup that will allow me to rework the neck body joint without weakening it. It all depends on the pickup working as I hope it will. Does anyone else think those frets are hard to play and do you think what I`m trying to do is whorthwhile? I`ve got a couple of guitars that I`m waiting for the finish to cure, where I`ve changed the fret layout just a little and made the whole neck more comfortable to play. Any opinions would be appreciated. Thanks Mikej

[spud1950]

Beautiful guitar! I like the design and the craftsmanship appears to be top notch.Unless my eyes deceive me,it looks like the neck has no taper to the width,like a classical guitar neck? What is the scale length of your guitar? You might be interested to know that you can get 24 3/4"conversion necks that can be bolted on with no need to reposition the bridge to compensate.Warmoth makes them.They also make longer scale baritone conversion necks.Here's the Strat short scale neck.

http://www.warmoth.com/Guitar/Necks/...rsionNeck.aspx

[Steve A.]

Beautiful guitar! I like the design and the craftsmanship appears to be top notch.Unless my eyes deceive me,it looks like the neck has no taper to the width,like a classical guitar neck? What is the scale length of your guitar? You might be interested to know that you can get 24 3/4"conversion necks that can be bolted on with no need to reposition the bridge to compensate.Warmoth makes them.They also make longer scale baritone conversion necks.Here's the Strat short scale neck.

http://www.warmoth.com/Guitar/Necks/...rsionNeck.aspx

Thanks for the link! What I don't quite understand is that it seems to me that some bridges will need to be modified. I have some strat bridges with one of the saddles all of the way forward and one of them all of the way back. It seems to me that with the baritone length neck I might need to modify the bridge. (I don't feel like doing the math right now ) That would be the exception and not the rule- a great idea if you want a shorter or longer scale neck on your strat!

Steve Ahola

[mikej]

Thanks for the compliments Spud, the neck does taper from 1 3/4 at the nut to 2 3/16 at the body neck joint. The scale length is 24 3/4 so I stiffened the guitar by adding carbon fiber rods in the body to keep the sustain from dropping off due to the shorter scale length, it worked great my guitars have more sustain than Strats. It also lets me keep the neck body joint a lot thinner.

[mikej]

SteveA, I`ve run into problems during my builds where I can`t get the intonation right even though I`ve used the same scale length and bridge placement on all my guitars. I sometimes run out of adjustment on the saddles. Since switching to Elixir coated strings and Optima gold strings I have`nt had any problems, their both high quality sets, especially the Optima gold. They go for $30.00 a set but I think are well worth it, they don`t make near as much noise when sliding your fingers up and down the strings. Their plated with 24kt gold so should last a long time.
Spud, when you said the neck of my guitar didn`t appear to have much taper, maybe you were talking about the thickness, in which case your right only about a 1/16".

[spud1950]

Spud, the neck does taper from 1 3/4 at the nut to 2 3/16 at the body neck joint.

That's the dimension I was talking about.I guess it's my old eyes playing tricks on me!

[David Schwab]

That's a cool shape. It looks like the real old Carvin guitars, and the old BC Rich Seagull. I always liked those shapes.

I prefer the tone of 25.5 scale guitars, and as long as I don't have my strap too low I haven't had a problem with my wrists.