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Permalink Reply by Scott aka Farmer Ted on December 15, 2014 at 5:07am

Wayfinder hit it on the head. In other words, go for it. One bonus to using a larger box (whether it be acoustic or electric) is that it allows for a full length neck with the 24 to 25.5" scale length. This adds other bonuses. You can have more frets exposed/reachable to play (most important, the 12th fret is accessible without jamming the fretting hand against the body). The bridge is easier to position in an optimum location for best resonance (not at the tail end of the box, but closer to 1/3 from the end). And let's face it, who doesn't love a big cigar box?

By the way, I think you have too many words in your question title... ;  )

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Permalink Reply by john mackay on December 15, 2014 at 7:07am

dame it I knew I'd cock it up some where.lol

and this post was meant to be in the building secrets.

see I was getting all excited when I was typing this out and posted in the wrong one.

one must think 1st mustn't one

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Permalink Reply by john mackay on December 15, 2014 at 9:35am

I'll be sticking to a 25.5" scale on all of the cbg inc some solid builds.

I've seen some mdf boards which are about a mitre square and about 3 or 4mm thick ,so I want to get what I can out of one sheet.

so I think 4x 10" x 8"  and 2@ 9" x 7" approx will be fine

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Permalink Reply by Scott aka Farmer Ted on December 16, 2014 at 1:15am

Are you planning on making boxes from MDF? Hmmm

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Permalink Reply by robert jones on December 16, 2014 at 1:37am

Mdf might not be a great choice, hdf on the other hand will work fine. The Silvertone 1457 I picked up a while back has masonite for the front and back.

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Permalink Reply by ChickenboneJohn on December 16, 2014 at 4:37am

I've used 3mm MDF on over 1200 guitars that we make in our "Make and Play" workshops, and it works fine. It's perhaps counter intuitive, but for the design we use, MDF sounded better and was cheaper than plywood when we were developing the prototypes. Hardboard (Masonite) also works well. Theory is all well and good, but trial and error and practical experience wins out everytime. The commonly available thin plywood is light, but actually rather stiff compared with MDF, that may go some way to explaining why MDF seems to work better.

I'm sure a finely crafted box made with a cedar top would sound much better, but I'm shooting for the best "bang for the buck", as I need to keep the cost of my materials down to make sure the workshops remain good value, and frequently we are knocking out dozens of these boxes a week to keep pace with keeping the workshops rolling.

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Permalink Reply by john mackay on December 16, 2014 at 7:35am

well that makes sense from where I'm sitting,keeping cost down.

counter intuitive? never heard that before..just checked google now I've learnt summet.lol

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Permalink Reply by john mackay on December 16, 2014 at 11:04pm

oh he's a clever chicken is our john!

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