Forums

long cigar boxes and scale length problems

Posted by Kevin on August 24, 2015 at 8:19pm in Building Secrets, Tips, Advice, Discussion

I have a CBG question to ask members advice. Is this the best place on this site to do this? Currently I have several cigar boxes that are over 20" in length.  I want to build neck through CBG'S with these boxes. I was hoping to keep an 18" fretboard from the nut to beginning of the box but in doing so I end up with about a 35" scale length due to the length of the box. Anyone have any suggestions? thanks   

You need to be a member of Cigar Box Nation to add comments!

Join Cigar Box Nation

Email me when people reply –
Follow

Replies

  • Kevin September 8, 2015 at 3:35pm
    I'm not a double cutaway fan but I will use the fretboard on the box idea. There r some other good suggestion I will try as well. Thanks for the help.
  • Kevin September 8, 2015 at 3:33pm
    Yeah, that has been suggested previously and i am probably going to impliment that. I won't start this project till I practice with some of these suggestions on some free cigar boxes I have.
  • Paul Craig September 8, 2015 at 3:26pm

    Another option is to make the neck shorter and extend the fretboard over the top of the box, but not touching the top. My first CBG build has a extension over the top. For some reason I though it would be a good idea to make a 24 fret acoustic. Silly Me.

    Randy's double cutaway idea is also good.

  • Kevin August 27, 2015 at 5:49pm
    Thanks to everyone for your imput and advice. I am new to CBG building and am hooked. I now have some good information to help me build these long box CBG's. I have built 4 regular sized ones so far.
    • Christopher Dudley > Kevin September 8, 2015 at 11:54am

      I am finishing up my first CBG and I too had some headscratching and texting moments trying to figure it out!  My box is 16" long, so I used about a 36" piece of curly maple right through the box with a spliced in birdseye maple head.  The fret board is 16" exactly and I just fretted as much as I could, maybe 15 frets.  The scale is 25.5" from nut to bridge, so the bridge is somewhere around 2/3 down the box.  Getting the frets in the mail today and then finishing everything and praying it sounds awesome!!!  Just did a single piezo pickup on this build, probably go better next one.

  • Thumper August 25, 2015 at 11:24am

    I'm a bit confused, how could the scale length change because of the length of the box? Scale length is determined by the length of the neck from the nut to the 12th fret, then doubled....easy peasy.

    • Ron "Oily" Sprague > Thumper August 25, 2015 at 12:17pm
      It doesn't. He was wanting to use an 18" fretboard, and couldn't figure out how to make that work.
      • darryl kernaghan > Ron "Oily" Sprague August 25, 2015 at 4:15pm

        your info is sound Oily,an 18 '' fretboard,outside a 20'' box will take some doing,given that generally we look to bridge around 1/3 of the box from the tail,some numbers need crunching here,but also consider that you will end up with a looooong guitar,20 in box,plus 18 in neck,is it likely to be easily handled,i can't say for you,but it would not work for me,losing a few frets into the body however you do it ,i'm sure will make it a little easier to handle

  • Randy S. Bretz August 25, 2015 at 1:54am

    306479629?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024Do a double cut away ..this silverware box is 19" long....25 3/4" scale length

  • Ron "Oily" Sprague August 24, 2015 at 10:26pm
    20" long is exactly the length of a commercial Dreadnaught acoustic body. Their scale lengths, measured from nut to bridge, are typically 24 - 25.5". They usually have 14 frets clear of the body, but up to 20 frets on the fretboard. The bridge is usually placed 2/3 of the way down the body from the neck joint, so around 13". Yet, their fretboards are typically 18" or so long. How do they do it? Overlap the fretboard on top of the guitar top, by about 4-5", either by gluing the fretboard directly to the top, or by cantilevering the fretboard over the top, to leave up to a 1/4" gap between the fretboard and the top, so the top is free to resonate.

    You could easily build either a neck-to, with the neck extending the full length of the box, but stopping inside it, or a bolt-on neck, or the more complicated heel-and dovetail joined neck.

    With the neck inside the box, you then have to think about string attachment. If you want a non-glued bridge, then you use an archtop-style bridge with a trapeze tailpiece, or you glue / screw the bridge to the top, and either use pins like a commercial acoustic ( which will put a mighty strain on that top if it isn't braced), or go through the top and neck to the back, like a Strat. Alternatively, you can use a metal bridge plate with adjustable saddles. There are numerous examples of people doing that here.

    Alternatively, you could build a 27-28" scale length baritone. Or go crazy, and build a 30-34" scale length bass.
This reply was deleted.