Making my own Les Paul Style Guitar- EvO:R Entertainment The Guitar Questions Section

For almost one year, guitar luther Rick Andrews answered your guitar repair questions. After recieving over 500 questions we put together the most popular questions and answers. Today, we are involving other great guitar builders and will continue to expand this area in the future. This section will no longer be interactive but you should find most of your guitar building and repair questions have already been answered in this section.

Special Note!
We are now stocking and selling electric guitar kits. By establishing a working relationship with two manufacturing plants we now offer many electric guitar kits. Some of the styles include the Telecaster, Stratocaster, Explorer, Flying V, Les Paul, PRS, and the Warlock. More will be added every couple months. If you are looking to find an inexpensive alternative to purchasing a new guitar you might want to consider a guitar kit from your friends at EvO:R.

See the guitar Kits Here

Making my own Les Paul Style Guitar

Thanks for putting up such an excellent page. I'm currently making my own Les Paul style guitar and just need to get a bunch of minor questions sorted out.
Scale Length: Where do I begin the scale length: at the front, middle or end of the nut.
The 18 Rule for measuring disance between frets: Is it actually 17.817 (as Melvyn Hiscock says in building your own electric guitar) or 17.835 (as Ralph Denyer has in The Guitar Handbook)?
Neck Radius: The compound radius on Gibson fretboards: starts out as 12" at the nut, but what is it at the end of the fretboard? I know what fretboard radius and compound fretboard radius are, but what is Neck Radius and compound neck radius?
Vintage Les Pauls: I heard a rumour that these have "acoustic" sound chambers like Brian May's red special guitar: is this true?
Matt Newcastle
Australia.

Rick Andrews Answers Your Question Below.

Answers for Matt:
Scale length: You begin the scale length at the center inside face of the nut where the string is actually pinched off at the precise point where the string starts to sound and the other end of the scale is at the bridge saddle inside face of the point it is starting its sound. In other word the entire length of the string that moves or makes sound.

18 Rule fret distance: This is not a factor in my way of thinking or applies anywhere I know of. The distance between frets varies. Each set of frets continue to get closer together as it goes up the neck. The 12th fret is exactly 1/2 of the distance between the nut and the bridge which is also one full octave higher in pitch. You can calculate the distances between each set of frets or just use a scale template premade for this that has each fret properly laid out. The best way is to purchase the fretboard already preslotted. If you can buy the wood fretboard for $10 you can get it preslotted for about $14.

Fretboard radius: The Gibson fretboard radius is 12" all the way from nut on to the end. It stays the same 12" radius. The fretboard is wider at the other end but the radius is still 12" all the way.

Neck radius: The neck has no radius if you are thinking about where the fretboard glues to the neck wood itself. The bottom of the fretboard is flat and glues to the flat top side of the neck. Then the top side of the fretboard is cut to the 12" radius all the way down. To change that radius would be rediculous to do and much harder to keep accurate. That is why the standard is always the same radius. The back side of the neck does look like it has a radius appearance but is not a true radius. It is more of an elipse shape with a tighter curve at each edge and a bit flatter at the center line. A true radius would be perfectly round and too thick for comfortable playing.

Vintage Les Pauls . . acoustic chambers: Not any that I know of. All the Les Pauls I have seen apart are just solid blocks of wood and cut out only for the pickups, and wiring cavities. There would be no advantage to do this unless it was totally hollow body. I think they may have made a model that was hollow with f holes but the normal Les Pauls had no such accoustic qualities as far as I know of.

Andrews Guitars

Looking to build a new guitar? EvO:R now stocks imported guitar kits from the most popular models around. Every guitar kit is built to a very high standard which ultimatly delivers superior sound quality and amazing playablity.

To see all the guitar Kits click here