Official Luthiers Forum!

I'd like to start out with an apology. My searches on this forum did not yield what I was looking for. It's possible I missed something. It's possible I didn't consider the correct key words. In any event, please forgive the repetitive thread if it has been posted before.

I have opportunity to help design a baritone guitar. I've never built a guitar before but the luthier who has agreed to take it on is an experienced and willing builder. For my own education, I'd like to see some baritone plans or hear from baritone builders on the forum.

I know a little about the baritone guitar. Scales are longer (26-30") to facilitate the higher tension of heavier strings. This creates greater stress on the soundboard which likely will need stiffer or "double x bracing".

There's a reason that most baritone guitars are jumbo's. The one I'd like to build however needs to be smaller, say the size of an OM Larrivee, a 000-15S Martin or an X14 or x12 Taylor. And this is where I know there will be compromises. The smaller the box, the less the projection AND the more difficult it might be to hear the heavier strings: there's less of a soundboard to vibrate even with the longer scale. Other than sound re-enforcement, I haven't a clue how to mitigate that compromise.

Can anyone help me figure out the finer points of building an OM-size baritone and/or furnish a plan for such a guitar? Any resource references would be greatly appreciated as well.

Again, I'm sorry that my searches didn't allay a repetitive thread.

Thank you.

FWIW I am building a travel guitar with removable neck that must fit in a 14x22 suitcase. It will be normal scale 25" due to space constraints. But one thing it will have in common with yours is that it will have a limited body size, yet it will be nice if it handles low frequencies as well. This is due to it having 8 strings, a normal six and two more, each a fourth down.

At the moment I am just going to barge ahead and not worry so much about tone, since the bar is lower for travel guitars, and I plan to stick a neck pickup in it for jazz purposes. And I am sure the massive 8 string headless bridge isn't going to help the vibration of the top any. I will be watching your thread with interest.

Welcome to the land of messy prototypes.

I guess you're right..... That's exactly what I'm getting into! This is gonna' be interesting.

Thank you for the response.

I am just finishing off a baritone of my own design.
With baritones there is no real standard, it is all about making decisions on the following.

-What will the guitar be tuned to --perhaps to C or to B
-What is the longest scale length that is acceptable to the player
-what gauge strings will be used
-what fret will the neck join the body.
-where does the bridge and soundhole end up as a result of this

whilst you are using heavier strings and longer scale, the lower tuning means you may not have a significantly higher string load and do not need to change bracing much.

OOoooo! Thanks for all that!! It substantially deepens the mystery and at once dispels fears of screwing up a conventional design. The field is wide open for design then, eh?

OK. Let's try this and see where it goes. Chris Smither plays a Collings 0002H Cut. Someday I'd like to build a guitar like this. It's a 12-fret. But right now, I'd like to build a baritone based on this design. Is it do-able and still playable as a baritone?



*Tuned to B.

*I'm a short guy so a scale of 27 is about max.

*For a small-bodied guitar, is a string gauge of 16-70 too much?

*I like the idea of a 12-fret cutaway but that'd put the bridge a couple inches further back than the 0002H (25.5 scale). So I guess the neck will have to join the body at fret 14.

*My thought is to have at least a three piece neck with a truss rod adjustment at the headstock.

*Nut width no less than 1.75" and no more than 1.9".

*String separation at the saddle, maybe no less than 7/16" between strings and a minimum of about 2.25" string spread.

*Neck profile is going to be tricky since I'm not building this myself. How do you communicate neck profiles via cyberspace? This has always been a sensitive issue with my left hand. I like the Martin Modified Low Oval neck profile. But I also like Taylor's faster x12 and x14 necks. But communicating that to someone who doesn't have one of those necks in his hand is like trying to describe colour to a blind man.

The question remains: How will I know if this guitar will need additional bracing to keep from imploding?

Thank you.

A 27" Baritone tuned to B with those string gauges is going to have a pretty similar total string tension to a 25.4 scale with medium gauge strings tuned to E so IMHO you do not need to change the bracing.

Using a 12 fret body(which is longer than a 14 fret body) and joining at the 14th fret is a good approach for keeping the bridge in an acceptable position.
Draw it out with a 25.4 scale 12 frets and a 27 scale 14 fets and look at where the bridge moves to. You dont need to do 12 or 14, 13 is ok too.
I did basically a 12 fret dread and put a 14 fret 27.5 scale neck on it.

Thanks a lot, Jeff. This is getting interesting. I had no idea that standard X or forward-shifted X would be stout enough to withstand prolonged pressures from baritone strings and tunings. 'Makes me wonder where the thresholds are, i.e. at what point do I start worrying about inadequate stability to the top? And......I guess that's one of the mysteries in building something by guesstimate, eh?



Thank you for the 'a-ha' moment.

I chose the longer 000 body as a foundation for this project because I thought it would be easier to retro-fit a 27" scale onto it than the shorter OM body. But my reasoning was initially ass-backwards. I had the mental image of moving the bridge back to accommodate the longer scale KEEPING the 12-fret neck - and it probly' could be done that way, but it'd be ugggggleee. It's a lot smarter to connect at frets 13 or 14 to keep the bridge (and bracing) more in their traditional positions.


Now.....IF I wanted to beef up the bracing just for my own peace of mind. How would that be done? I'm guessing stouter pieces of sitka or just don't scallop them? Hard to know how thick to make them so that they wouldn't restrict the movement of the sound board.

27" is right on the short end of scale for a baritone.
In B tuning even with the 16 to 70 strings it will not have a significantly higher string tension than a normal guitar.
Beefing up bracing just in case is a good way to kill the response of a guitar.

I would not presume to tell your luthier how to brace, your input should probably end with body shape, scale length,fret at which the neck joins, tuning and string gauges and all the aesthetic choices for the appearance of the instrument.

Thank you guys for the sound advice and analogies. I'm too focused on bracing issues that I know very little about.

I think I have enough information to pass along and get this started.

Thanks to all who posted to this thread. 'Greatly appreciated. I'll be lurking from time to time to see if there are any additional posts.