Wide Neck Acoustic
 

I am looking for an acoustic guitar that has a wide neck. I have a 1971 Yamaha FG2000 that I really love but my fingers are somewhat stubby and they are getting stiffer in my middle age. I also play a Yamaha classical guitar and find it much "friendlier" to play because of the wider neck. I love the bright sound of a spruce top acoustic and am wondering if any of you know of a wide neck spruce top acoustic guitar.

How much do you want to spend and how wide do you want the neck to be? 1 3/4" or more.

I just picked up a used Guild GAD 30 that had a nice wide neck, 1 3/4 that has a spruce top and mahogany back and sides that could work for you.

if you can find a Taylor Chris Proctor model they come standard with a 1 7/8 nut width. I'm guessing that your Yamaha has a 1 11/16 (or maybe even narrower) nut on it, so a 1 3/4 with nice wide spacing at the nut (my Webber with 1 3/4 is at 39mm) you would feel quite a bit different. Also remember that neck profile (depth) has something to do with how you perceive the "room" you have. Larrivee also makes a couple of options....the SD-60 and SD-50 models are 12 fret slope dreads that come standard with 1 7/8, the 000-50 and 000-60 (both 12 fret also) have 1 13/16 as does the newer LSV-11 (14 fret) model.

For some reason, a lot of guitar makers put wider necks on their 000 and 00 bodies, especially the slot-head models. My H&D 000-SP has a 1 13/16 nut. Their 00-SP has a 1 7/8 nut. Martin's 000 slot heads are also 1 13/16.

Seagull has a whole bunch of guitars with neck widths of 1.8 and 1.9 inches, and they are fairly low priced. If you want to go high end, the Goodall line has necks that are wider than 1 3/4 - similar in width to the 12 string.

Tacoma's are right in there with 1.75" necks. Although there are rumblings that Fender is ending the brand, so you might pick one up while you still can, they are outstanding for the money.

I played this little guy at Elderly's today for a few minutes....what a cool little guitar with a suprising voice. If you are a fan of the Larrrivee parlor, do yourself a favor and sell it and buy one of these....

http://elderly.com/new_instruments/items/BR341.htm

If I hadn't just bought an L-03R and two classicals in the last three weeks, I'd have probably brought it home with me...1 7/8 nut width stock, all solid woods.

"As to acoustics with wide necks, I've seen a couple of players take a standard 12 string guitar and remove the ''high'' strings, turning it into a wide necked 6 string instrument."

I was looking at THIS on eBay when they had one with a pickup for $69 shipped last week. What got me was the width of the neck......2 1/16th! I wrote the guy and he said that it was no mis-print, the necks at the nuts were 2 1/16th.......how is that for a wide neck? LOL

Tacoma is probably just what you are looking for. They've got some great guitars. Check out the round hole ones before the wing series if you can. They've got a nice beefy neck to them.

I'd avoid the 12-string-minus-6 route. 12-string guitars are braced for much more tension; using just 6 strings will likely cause neck problems and give you a dead sound. As noted above there are lots of good guitars with wider fingerboards at reasonable prices; Seagull's my favorite.

Not sure what your price range is, but you might want to check this out:
http://www.martinguitar.com/guitars/...adnaught%20111

I test-drove one of these out at My Favorite Guitars a few weeks back and it is killer--very loud. Mahogany back & sides, Adi top.

Check these 2 out.

http://liondogmusic.com/instruments.htm

"12-string guitars are braced for much more tension; using just 6 strings will likely cause neck problems and give you a dead sound."

I never thought of that....has anyone confirmed this? Grabbing a 12 and converting it to a 6 looks like my only choice at the moment, so I would be interested in this comment.....

Don't sweat it - I had a 12 string I bought back in 1980, and after deciding that 12 strings weren't for me, changed it over to a 6 string and it sounded fine. If you want, you can always add tension by increasing the gauge of the strings you put on it. Regarding the neck, if it has a truss rod, a simple tweak there will correct any backward bow, but I doubt you'll need to do that - the tension difference isn't that great.

If you're thinking about buying a 12 string and then converting it, take a look down the neck with all the strings tuned up to pitch, then tune just the strings you would remove down to slack and look down the neck again. If the difference looks like it might be a problem, check to see if there's a truss rod.