Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi everybody,

I built an electric guitar about 15 years ago and have decided I want to build another.
Since the last guitar I have become a professional woodworker and CNC operator.
A friend from work has decided to join me and build one for his son.
I have decided to first build a cheap Tele with all hardware from Ali Express and then we will build 2 Strats.
I will be doing as much of the project as possible via CNC and CAM/CAD software.

Now that I am done with the introduction I would like to ask a few questions:
1. What height should the fingerboard be above the body?
2. How do I place the bridge?
3. I decided I would use a Gotoh bridge on the Strats. Any suggestion as to what model to use?

All and any help would be appreciated

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Hi Hillel, I happened to be browsing the forum and thought I would comment. I've built a few telecaster style guitars and assembled a couple of strat style parts guitars. I'm also pretty active at another forum that mostly focuses on telecaster style guitars that has an active building sub forum, you might want to check that out. There are a few folks there working with cnc and that might be helpful also (I build in the conventional manner with hand and small power tools)

If you haven't built in a while I always recommend Melvyn Hiscock's book on building your own electric guitar, it literally covers everything. The second thing I recommend is downloading the free telecaster body drawing done by TDowns, it is the sticky on top of this page

https://www.tdpri.com/forums/tele-home-depot.46/

The important thing to note is the shape and depth of the neck pocket, if you follow that it will answer your first question. But the simple answer is that with a pocket depth of 0.625 inches (5/8) and a total heel thickness of one inch at the center line the neck will be standing 3/8 proud of the body.

There are several variations in a telecaster neck, it can be one piece of maple with a curved truss rod inserted from the back ("skunk strip") or it can be a maple or other wood neck with a separate fretboard (which is what I prefer to build). My rule of thumb is that when I locate the bridge (I'll come to that in a minute) I like the neck geometry (angle and overstand) to make the fret plane (a straightedge resting on the frets pointing to the bridge) to just barely hit the tops of the saddles when they are at their lowest adjustment - that gives you the best range of saddle adjustment to get good playable action.

There are several methods of locating the bridge on the top of the guitar. The TDowns drawing has the location of the mounting holes and thru body string holes for what is know as the vintage or four screw bridge. Simply built to the drawing and it should be right. Another method is to adjust the saddles as far forward as they will go with intonation screws and then put the break point of the saddle on the uncompensated scale length that you are using. The third way is to run the fret position calculator on the StewMac website, at the bottom of the page it will give you location measurements for many popular bridges.

I make it a point to have the neck fitted to the body before I locate the bridge. That way you can get the centerline perfect with the neck and you can measure from the actual nut location to find the scale length.

There are a variaty of bridges available for both tele's and strats depending on whether you want three or six bridges, thru body or "top loading", tremolo or hardtail on the strat. In some cases your choice of pickup will affect the choice of bridge. I've had good luck with a variety of different bridges, I think most of the current designs work well and can be properly intonated. Tremolos on strats are considerably more complicated - I've set them up but never built a guitar with one.

Since I'm not a regular poster at this site I would suggest at least checking out the one I referenced above. I can also point you to a couple of build threads and an article about Fender geometry.

Good luck with your project. Let me know if I can help further

A couple of other thoughts. I gave you a link to tele plans, plans for strats are available on line. I do have an official Fender drawing if you can't find one.

Remember that tele and strat necks are slightly different. A stat neck will fit a tele body but will leave gaps, a tele neck will not fit a strat body.

Its always seemed like overkill to use a cnc to make solid body guitars. A band saw and a router with a few templates has worked fine for me (I come from a cnc background in industry). Cnc milling a neck does make sense but its a lot of work to create exactly the model you want, particularly for only two or three guitars. However there are some threads on this forum about cnc and lutherie and several folks at TDPRI are using cnc for their builds.

Thank you for your thorough response. It helps a lot.
Btw, are you the same freeman from this thread?
Thread 'A chambered tele-ish sort of thing' https://www.tdpri.com/threads/a-chamber ... ng.884657/
I have been going through it and getting a lot of good tips from it.

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I am. Please feel free to reach out either on this forum or that one.

That's awesome! Building a guitar with CNC sounds like a rewarding project. For your questions, I'd recommend checking out some online guitar building forums or even YouTube tutorials - they often have detailed measurements and advice. In fact, if you need a little break from all the precision work, try the Suika Game, it requires precision as well! Good luck with your builds!

So... I have started working on the first build and ordering stuff for the second.
After searching the forums I have decided to buy a the truss rod from Mark Blanchard of Blanchard Guitars and I have to say, it is such fine work it's a shame to bury it in the neck .
Second choice was the bridge. I got a Callaham Vintage S. Also an amazing piece of hardware.
Still haven't decided on the pickups.
Meanwhile I have been working on the cheap builds neck and I am very happy that I'm doing all my learning on it. It has not been smooth sailing. When using the cnc, you always have to think about the way you anchor the work piece to the machine surface. Since I have been kind of wingging it, I have been having to improvise a lot.
That being said, I have been pleasantly surprised by the results.
I will add some photos and stop babbling.

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Well... Can't upload over 250kb sadly. So, no photos.

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Hey Wednesday

250kb is plenty for computer pictures.

I resize mine to about 700x500 pixels and they come out to about 55kb. They work fine for the forum and don't require scrolling around to see the picture on smaller laptops or tablets.

Most operating systems have a basic photo editor you can use to resize pics.

Give it a try, would love to see your project.

Good luck

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Brian R, Wood Mechanic
N8ZED