I'm building my first license plate guitar.  I'm making the neck now.  I have a 1x2 mahogany piece as the main neck with an ebony fret board.  I want the fret board to extend a few inches over the license plate.  

It feels like a stupid question, but do I cut out a section of the license plate or lay the fret-board on lop of the license plate?

thanks, 

Daniel

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Replies

  • JL:

    Thanks I'll check out a capo get some heavier strings next time.

    Grandpa:

    Yeah, I made the neck 2" too long in hindsight, but I wanted to use all that beautiful ebony I bought!  I made the body myself out of 1x3 mahogany and it is a righty (most people have told me I mounted the license plate upside down).

    -DN

  • Let the fretboard overhang onto the plate by a fret or two. Setting the neck in the box so that the fretboard has a little bit of height above the top of the box is always a good idea as then it will give you a decent bridge height and a good string break angle over it.

    Don't cut the plate, you are only making unncecessary work for yourself.

    • Great, thanks!  Just built of the neck exactly this way.

      Regarding cutting the plate, I plan on putting in a mini-humbucker at the neck and another at the bridge.  I assume I need to cut the plate for this?

  • You can do either, but it will reduce the plates resonance a little, can you lift the neck just a little to let the board float over the plate without touching? Or even take a little off the underside of the fretboard where it goes over the plate. If i was to do either of your 2 choices, i'd probably go for cutting the plate, and coming up with some way of making it look ok, maybe something like a contrasting colour mesh glued under the plate, and use it as a soundhole by making it a little wider and longer than the necks footprint, that's just my take, someone might have a better idea

    .

    • Ok, great idea.  I pretty much did that last night.  What I did was NOT glue the portion of the fret-board that will go over the license plate.  Actually, I slid the license plate under while the rest was glued.

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