#1 resource for Cigar Box Guitars, Free Plans, How-To, Parts & More!

4 string neck width

Hello again!
I'm working on a four stringer... does anyone have any thoughts on neck width?
I measured and found the 1 1/2" neck works mathematically. Un sure if it lends itself to playability.
Up til now I've only made three stringers.
As always thank you for any input.

0 members like this

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Ben Ridgeway on August 26, 2018 at 8:14am

Plans?
Never heard of her?
I belong to the "Wing it" school,
I have fret marking stick and the willingness to make lots of mistakes!

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Taffy Evans on August 26, 2018 at 7:42pm

Ha ha, I belong to the school of "get right first time" but still make mistakes.

Taff

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Uncle Fred on August 25, 2018 at 2:15pm

None of my guitars have frets. It's slide only for me. I too have trouble finger picking on narrow string spacings. So I make all my strings 1/2" apart where the neck meets the neck. I like the neck about 1/4" bigger on each side for a neck width of 2" at the box on a 4 string. Lately I've been tapering the neck slightly to 1-7/8" at the head.

1/2" seems to be the smallest dimension between strings that I can comfortably finger pick. Like George Thorogood, I never figured out how to use a flat pick.

Fred

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Uncle Fred on August 26, 2018 at 8:18am

I might be able to train myself to finger pick with strings narrower than 1/2" spacing. But, I'm building the guitars from scratch, why not make it what works comfortably. There are enough playing basics and music theory challenges without unnecessarily adding another one.

My two string bass, which I dearly love, has 3/4" spacing. I would not change the string spacing on it.

Fred

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Frank Scott on August 26, 2018 at 7:20am

I know some of the St.Blues guitars come at 1.5" neck because I was checking with them because I have seen guys finger picking those with no problem. I think it would work fine for normal size hands. The unit I have is only 1 3/8" for a four string and I will admit I had to do some adjusting to set it up to finger pick but, it works at 9mm distance between the strings and very little to spare for the outside of strings 1 and 4 but it works great. I will always go for the 1.5" and no less for any other units I buy or try to build.