Modifying A Telecaster For 24 Frets... Sounded Good On Paper

[@neckjig1]

Matt. Paper is just really, really, really thin wood. So, when you work on paper you’re really just still working on wood. But, it’s just really thin wood.

[@TexasToastGuitars]

Really thin :)

[@andrewtomecko3437]

Matt, you are a genius! I had to do one of these for a customer recently and went back and forth trying to make it work. You have just made my life easier. You, are the reason I build guitars and basses. Thanks for the inspiration. Also thanks for turning me on to Dan at GWE! Super awesome dude!

[@TexasToastGuitars]

Thanks Drew, that is a very nice thing to say. Dan at GWE is the man we are lucky he lets us hang out with him :)

[@donald-parker]

Fun fact ... A neck made for a normal 22 fret Fender (25.5 ") scale, but with fret slots cut to Gibson (24.75") scale will give you 24 frets. You still have to move PUs and the bridge. Unless you buy a body that is scaled down to 7/8 a normal tele body (Warmoth makes these). One of the nice side effects of this is that your 5th fret harmonics can now be heard using your neck PU. On a normal fender these harmonics are dead on the neck PU because the node of vibration is right over the neck PU.

[@TexasToastGuitars]

Also a good way to go

[@guitarocd9984]

I bought a 24 3/4 in. conversion neck for my Telecaster from Warmoth. It's awesome.

[@TexasToastGuitars]

They make really great stuff

[@100amps]

“It’s my guitar! Make your own damn guitar!” Right on. Thank you. 🍺

[@TexasToastGuitars]

I have been catching a lot of shade lately, I had to vent a little bit

[@100amps]

But you’re right, Matt. Folks tend to think there is only one right way to do something and everything else is wrong. Or that Leo was a tone genius and every feature he designed was to achieve tone perfection. Truth is, he was like you; he just did what made sense under the circumstances.

[@bevo65]

Great explanation. And your penmanship is above reproach.

[@TexasToastGuitars]

Thanks my friend, though I have never been accused of anything more than decent penmanship :)

[@nicholasrigg8999]

Just about my favourite guitar building channel. Deserves way more subscribers!

[@TexasToastGuitars]

Thanks my friend, who is your favorite?

[@m7alan7johnson7]

Hey Matt, great to see you working out the drawing. I was a Freelance and commercial artist AND teacher for around 37 years and I love the design process (I mean really love it...too much in fact.) Enough about my bedroom antics. Really cool to see how you averaged the line of the body to compensate for the new design! I'm not a guy who measures much. What measure out nicely doesn't always look right. I like to measure by sight. But I imagine Chris is in the background holding a gun to your head so ... Sorry about my long comments. NOT! Great video!!!!

[@TexasToastGuitars]

You know I tease Chris a lot and very often put words in his mouth HAHAHA Design and redesign is pretty fun for me too.

[@alexjara8982]

What about doing a sort of scoop on the cutaway similar to what PRS does? I think it'd be great to preserve the classic tele silhouette. The heel access would need more work though.

[@TexasToastGuitars]

I think PRS put the scoop on the wrong side, Dan Armstrong got it right many years before. Having said that PRS probably did it more as a design que? A lot of good ways to go about solving some design modifications, give it a shot man

[@lehrgangswerk]

To put a 22 fret neck on a telecaster it is only necessary to move the the neck pickup or do you also have to move the bridge pickup?

[@kristopherdavis5824]

Awesome work out of curiosity is it possible to at 2 frets to a 20 fret acoustic thats already made?

[@donaldfisher8556]

Hey Matt, love the channel. Funny, just after I watched your video release today I took a look at what Antertons Music, in the UK, released; one guitar featured was a Squier Tele with just a bridge pick up. I think just 21 fret but cool looking. The video was about Fender reintroducing some Telecasters from years ago. Again love your channel and your approach to bringing us fun stuff.

[@TexasToastGuitars]

Hi Donald, Thanks for watching my friend. I'll have to check that out, we didn't go to Winter NAMM this year.

[@jessiecurl1843]

Just curious if you had a Tele blank lying around just to drop the extended fretboard into for a visual mockup?

[@TexasToastGuitars]

I do, I'll try and show it off for the Sunday live stream

[@ericsfc1ea.16]

I wood drop the neck pickup. I think most shredder tele players rely on the bridge pup for the most part. It will help keep the look of the original by not squishing the pups together.

[@TexasToastGuitars]

I agree Eric

[@henriquemontalvao8492]

I disagree. Sometimes for that one clean interlude you really need a neck pickup before going back to the bridge and unleash chaos.

[@docsiltanen]

Hey Matt, the repositioning of the lower horn is a pretty novel approach, the Warmoth extended fretboard/neck pickup reposition seems much simpler, I guess a full scale drawing of each side-by-side would be the only way to see what looks better to your eyes…. cool idea however….you going to build one ?

[@TexasToastGuitars]

We actually did one for a young man a few months ago

[@docsiltanen]

@@TexasToastGuitars …any pictures?

[@DragonofLimerick]

So then the problem is moving the neck pickup back, do you lengthen the body back too, or is there even a need to??

[@stanburtt]

Nice job, good practical advice. There are many ways to make this work cosmetically too, as you say “ if you’re so smart , build it yourself ...”

[@TexasToastGuitars]

You know how it is Stan, you just have to get in there are try things. They don't always work but that is what the paper is for.

[@salatieljyrustumanan4929]

Hey man, quick suggestion. How bout putting the cutaway at fret 22 and giving it a PRS-like contours to reach the 24th? so as to not alter the shape of the side of the output jack.

[@TexasToastGuitars]

That would be cool too

[@salatieljyrustumanan4929]

@@TexasToastGuitars Thanks!

[@echo1174]

exactly what I needed my man thanks. What about 24frets with a jazzMaster or jaguar? Same issues or different? My old neck is the best ever, the body is in a mess though. Need to find a good fit for it. Thanks

[@aann33ss]

Needed tele with 27 frets and Floyd rose, traditional looking with shredding component 😌

[@TexasToastGuitars]

You totally need that

[@kosaponglusang4595]

Awesome ...Sir can you Please do a video on how you would alter the shape for a 24 fret strat

[@TexasToastGuitars]

Let me see what I can do, we don't really build that many Strats... they just don't sell for us

[@kosaponglusang4595]

@@TexasToastGuitars I understand .. Thank you for your reply sir .. looking forward for more videos ...

[@paulrobertson7980]

Excellent video, great way to work it out

[@TexasToastGuitars]

Thanks Paul, I know it is very helpful for me to draw things out every now and then

[@lloydpittonet]

I love how you catch flack from both the purists AND the cats you try to reinvent the wheel. (In regards to the cavity between the pickups) that's the way Fender did it (inevitably to make life easier. A short bit is a lot easier to replace than a long one)

[@TexasToastGuitars]

I get a lot of shade thrown at me, I think it is pretty funny

[@Ibaneddie76]

Cool video Matt, I've designed a bunch of my own custom guitars this way and it works out great. Are you gonna build that 24 fret Tele? I think that would be pretty slick, maybe throw a Floyd and a humbucker on it instead of the old school Tele bridge and single coil. You could do some trick wiring to make up for the lack of a neck pickup. Just my dumb ideas I realize you know what you are doing, keep up the great work! Oh yeah I was wondering, is that tone paper? I noticed you never tapped on it to see how the guitar would sound.

[@TexasToastGuitars]

Thanks Eddie, we did build this guitar

[@edisonisaiah4871]

I try to do it a week ago on my strat and i like it.. Its quite satisfying to have 24 fret

[@TexasToastGuitars]

There are lots of reasons to have a 24 fret guitar... for me those notes are not one of them HAHAHA

[@gmon78]

Very interesting. Thanks for the video!

[@TexasToastGuitars]

Thanks for watching brotherman

[@gmon78]

@@TexasToastGuitars No worries. Thoroughly enjoyed it! Thanks again!

[@DavidZampieri]

great job! now everithing's clear in my mind!

[@TexasToastGuitars]

Glad I could help!

[@juandelatorre4517]

ever think of learning how to do this stuff in CAD?

[@TexasToastGuitars]

never

[@shumakerguitarworkssgw9505]

Great advice as always.. I’m going to be doing a 24 fret 25.5 scale mockingbird style aka the SGW Lark, pretty much exactly this way.. 🤘

[@TexasToastGuitars]

Sounds cool man, I think BC Rich did a lot of two octave necks

[@dougdeeper2537]

Between the saddles & the neck heel, is there a bad place to put a pickup? I had a guitar teacher back in the day, who had a guitar that he complained about, because he said it had bad pickup placement.

[@TexasToastGuitars]

Bad pickup placement... absolutely! The way the strings vibrate and precisely where they start and stop vibrating (you know the natural harmonics) are good, theoretical, places to start. Now, having said that people who complain about that might also be looking for stuff to complain about. It would be hard to prove that an alternate pickup position on that guitar your teacher would make it any better. It might be that if you go looking for something, don't be surprised when you find it?

[@donvanco3078]

There are "harmonic nodes" where THEORETICALLY it's optimal to place pickups - but in practice not really IMO. Lots of info via Google if you look into string harmonics.

[@pulaski1]

@@donvanco3078 I would have thought that the harmonic nodes would be the worst place for the pickups, given that you are using string vibration to create a signal in the pickup. In other words, the node is where string vibration is minimized.

[@donvanco3078]

@@pulaski1 right - I'm just mentioning them as the "reference points" that people tend to use for placement, not suggesting you use the nodal points as a focal. One hopes someone placing pickups has a base understanding of how they actually operate to produce sound.....

[@dougdeeper2537]

I’m going to follow up on the Google search. Thanks for all the comments guys!

[@jvin248]

One of the old Andertons videos they demoed a 30 fret single humbucker guitar Washburn/Ibanez. Frets got really close to each other. Might be interesting to do a three octave Esquire. ... and fret calculator says: for a 25.5in scale, the 36th fret is at 22.2in. Which leaves three and a quarter inches of pickup mounting space. It's possible. But that last fret is only a quarter inch away from the second to last fret, tight. But it's a shredder's guitar so they'll figure it out, lol.

[@TexasToastGuitars]

HAHAHA that would be one crazy guitar. I think a slide might be more beneficial

[@mikeivey8471]

Matt , thank you for that information !!! Very timely too , cause I'm just about to route a body that the template is set up for 22 frets bit i'm Gonna use 24 . Just cause I wanna ... LoL . You guys are the best !!

[@TexasToastGuitars]

Sounds pretty cool Mike, thanks for watching man

[@andymartin813]

I put the neck in so all I’m going to do know is move the tremolo bridge forward to get that 32.5 cm requirement

[@drittal]

I guess I wouldn’t get too crazy with the moving the lower horn. Just being able to move the heel back would go a long way on a Fender neck joint at improving fret access

[@TexasToastGuitars]

Yeah that would be a good way to go too. The idea with this video was to show a couple of components of the Build Your Own Body Class.

[@Bob_at_OZDiggzguitars]

Can you do a video making a six string template into a seven string? (with multi-scale and a conial-radius....lol...no, just kidding) Seriously...7 string ...please. I like the way you iron out the details.

[@TexasToastGuitars]

Hi Bob, you know we can do that :)

[@sebastianmse]

I always thought a tele with 23 frets!!!! so it don't move the mic, plus is so easy to just bend a little and get the high E ;)

[@WawakGuitar]

The scale length is the distance from the nut to the 12th fret doubled.

[@TexasToastGuitars]

Thanks

[@FloridaManMatty]

Pablo? Come to Florida! Please, Pablo... I will buy a ticket to Sea World for you and your pin router. We can feed the Flamingos sawdust and fret ends that we nip off in a build class. Say yes. Come to Florida. Yes?

[@m7alan7johnson7]

I was the 100th person to like the vid! Hey Matt, How ever you do things is cool. I was just sharing. Later

[@TexasToastGuitars]

Thanks Mark, we just do things the way that make sense to us, not the best just that way we are doin it these days :)

[@livingbreath]

Do u have to yell? I don’t hear the background so curious

[@pulaski1]

I would like to see you actually make a 24 fret Tele based on the modified layout you sketched.

[@TexasToastGuitars]

We did one for a young man a few months ago

[@mattjones1068]

@@TexasToastGuitars Any pictures of the project? It would be cool to see one built out.

[@pulaski1]

@@TexasToastGuitars Nice! ..... Can we see (pictures of) it? :- /

[@TexasToastGuitars]

I think there are pics in the guitar gallery section of the website

[@dalgguitars]

Great video, really fun! There is a special place in hell where people who make 24 fret telecasters go. ;-)

[@TexasToastGuitars]

Yikes!

[@jefferywarburton2116]

a jazzmaster or jaguar would be pretty cool this way too or even a mustang maybe with big 70s headstock maybe not

[@TexasToastGuitars]

We love the Fender Offset guitars too Jeffrey

[@jefferywarburton2116]

Dude jaguar V. ?

[@wamgoc3637]

You could always just make the neck longer and increase the scale length. Consider the bass extender found on the low string of orchestral double basses. The nut is mathematically the zeroth fret. You now have a zeroth fret, a-1 fret, a -2 fret, und so weiter. Of course now you have a neck heavy albatross which is no longer tune able to concert pitch. It’s a baritone and an awkward one at that. But you have 24 frets..... Alex Zachary has his 24 fret Tele and, it does work, but is it better than the Music Man Silhouette or a PRS 24? And does a typical Tele player care? Two groups of people play Tele’s, to over generalize, the Gatton/Buchanan/Kirchen virtuosi, who might, and the whackers, who are either band fronting singers like Brooce and LMM or rhythm stomping UP 844 steam engines like Keef. They don’t. In other words 24 frets is a nonsolution to a nonproblem. For most.

[@wamgoc3637]

Phil Kubicki offered the extra length scale on the bass string of his Factor basses. I don't even play bass and I have to admit I want one just for cool factor. They are $$$$ on the used market.

[@TexasToastGuitars]

You sure could

[@SSRT_JubyDuby8742]

Cool post 😎🎸✅

[@TexasToastGuitars]

Thanks Julian

[@gordonpelto1069]

I am in the 21st century, I use my CAD program. Save a Tree man.

[@TexasToastGuitars]

I don't think it is the same... I'm old school

[@JD.5150]

A good example of this for visual reference is a PRS Custom 22 vs a Custom 24.

[@TexasToastGuitars]

It sure is, very similar but very different

[@hurdygurdyguy1]

2:09 .. I'm a guy, I like to weedely weedely weedely!!!

[@TexasToastGuitars]

I like your style...the world needs more guitar players like you

[@markdearborn1828]

You need a scale length to fit the body and neck length.....custom scale and cut your own slots.

[@TexasToastGuitars]

We cut all our own fret slots

[@markdearborn1828]

@@TexasToastGuitars No disrespect intended. I convert old 6 string parlor guitars to octave mandolins (occasionally) and other vintage stuff, so custom length fretboards are the only way to make it work. I buy almost nothing standard, just fretboard blanks.

[@jimbucket2996]

Make an offset Fullerton body

[@TexasToastGuitars]

Like a Jazz Master? We have done a lot of those, they are really cool

[@dgaz3057]

would like to see the neck work, get creative? thanks for that advice, sounds like what a stranger would say.

[@TexasToastGuitars]

Not many are stranger than me

[@ResoBridge]

Baritone neck - simple.

[@TexasToastGuitars]

"It's as simple as that!" Velvet Jones

[@ourchannel8215]

bro..just change saddle..🤣😂 simple...we need same inch on nut to fret 12..fret 12 to saddle..

[@TexasToastGuitars]

Next time

[@sykko.exit2348]

It'll probably look like some kind of abomination. It's better to rescale the neck...

[@TexasToastGuitars]

Thanks for the vote of confidence