Neck width. Sand from 45mm to 44-43mm?
 

Hey folks!

So I have a Cort L300V with an Adirondack top that I actually really love, however its 1 3/4" (45mm) neck width and an edgy/sharp feeling C shape, actually gives painful pressure points at times. Whereas my preferred is more a 1 11/16" D on my other guitars. So its not getting much playtime.
Am thinking to tape it all up and possibly clamp a straight edge wood block against the fretboard and lightly sand about 1 to 2mm (a flat 0.5-1mm per side) off the width, frets still on.
There is plenty of room it seems before id run into strings fudging off the sides. Then re dressing the fret ends and scraping/rolling fretboard edges hopefully taking that knife edge off, while reducing the width as I like to play the E string with my thumb a lot which I frustratingly can't on my fav sounding guitar.

Seems simple enough but hardest bit could be to make it look ok and blend it at the body. Not too fussed if the dots come off or the metal fret ends show.

Looking for tips that could help and make it easier, what you guys think?

Cheers,
Clint

Not something I would ever consider doing but good luck.

I traded (bad trade at the time) a minty Fender Modern Player Plus Trans black Telcaster for a poorly cared for Yamaha Weddington Special that had a broken blade switch, broken wraparound bridge, broken tuners, and damage to the neck on the bass side that looked like termites chewed a hole in it. Note: never trade in the dark during a snow storm 60 miles from home. Anyway, since the blade switch is a PRS style and costs more than I wanted to spend, and the wiring is way beyond my abilities, I went with a 3 way Tele (ironically) switch, new bridge, new tuners and now for the neck:
I sanded the crap out of it until the bass E string was about to fall off the fret and out of the nut. There was still a hole there remaining, which I filled in with wood shavings and super glue. I fit a new nut and have been playing it ever since. I went ahead and relic'd the guitar for the heck of it. It gets lots of looks and people ask tons of questions about it. The Dimarzio pickups in it sound so good, I couldn't care less what the thing looks like. It plays fine.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...a2089923be.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...3942d0e301.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...6deba1791b.jpg

Interesting, so you're not removing a little wood from the back of the neck, changing the C profile a bit, you actually want to narrow the neck/fretboard by removing wood only from the sides? What about the nut? Normally people have the profile reshaped, but leaving the existing fretboard width. Let us know...

I'm about to try the same thing. A friend is giving me a 12 string neck which I am going to convert to a 6 string by sanding it narrower and cutting off half the headstock.
I'm looking forward to hearing how you deal with sanding the fret ends.

Was thinking of doing the same thing with one of my old guitars. I was planning to remove the frets first before sanding the edges but I also wanted to flatten the fretboard radius a bit. I would think it would be tougher to achieve a uniform rounded edge with the frets still in place.

You might get more response if you post this question in the build and repair forum.

https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/...splay.php?f=44

I think adapting yourself would be quicker and easier than adapting the instrument.

I played electric for 40 years. Got an acoustic earlier this year. I played it so much I'm now putting 11 and 12 gauge strings on my electrics and thinking about cutting a nut with a 47mm spacing for my PRS.

What he said. Failing that; as people advised me when I thought about reshaping the neck on a guitar (or 3) of mine; better to find one with a neck that already suits your style.

Well, if nothing else, it will certainly be a learning experience for all you fledgling guitar modders. :eek:

Exactly. Mine needs frets anyway. Good time to tweak the neck a bit

I've sanded a 48mm 12 string to 1 13/16, and a rekording king from 1 7/8 to 1 13/16.

I even did a video about it but no one knows how to post pics or videos on this forum so...

If it’s hosted, it can be posted

I would love to see it. Is it on YouTube?

This.

Why lower a guitar's value (or worse...potentially damage it) when there's SO MANY guitars in this world that would suit you better?

No offense...just my $.02

not standing on the throne of judgement -
but altering a guitar like that will make it
hard to resell ( if you ever want to do that )
just my two cents -its a bad idea

I can understand shaving the underside of the neck but there's a lot more work involved to sand the width, including the frets, fretboard binding (if any), and the nut.

I would sell the guitar and find another unless you consider it a project guitar and you want to learn.

Thankyou all for the replies and sorry about my late response.

YamahaGuy:
Looks good and if you enjoy it and plays nice then its perfect!

ItaLuke:
Yea just from the sides, it'll be more like just rounding the edges, its already fairly slim flat C profile so not concerned with the depth. Just feels like im holding a double edged sword by the blade haha.
The nut I will try to leave (I may only remove 0.5mm a side) as string spacing is kinda nice and I want mainly the bottom E string closer to the edge to do the thumb playing, but if I have to go to a smaller nut I don't see why I couldn't just fit one.

goog64:
I will tackle this at some stage so will keep you posted!

flatfinger:
Thanks for the link! Im going to just leave the frets in with a straight edge piece of wood clamped to the fretboard. 2 reasons for that, so I can set the depth at 1st and 14th fret and sand with the electric sander flat and straight to it neatly, plus also to reduce risk of frets popping out.

thefsb:
Adapting would mean getting finger extensions haha. I have short stumpy hands unfortunately and can't physically het my hands around it. I know what you mean though. Got a few acoustics and my main gigging guitar has my favourite neck, its a Sigma 000-R28v, 1 11/16" with a soft V, stainless jumbo frets, plays like a dream for me. So yea after knowing more about necks id like to give this a shot :)

takamineGD93:
Yea id also like to see that! I couldn't find a single YouTube video doing this.

generalliamsayn:
None taken :). Its actually a cheap guitar and I can't bring myself to sell it because I love the tone so I think its worth the experiment. Should be pretty simple to be honest, and im handy with tools and subscribe to the 6 P's (prior, planning, prevents, piss, poor, performance) only risk is frets lifting which ill have to bite the bullet and take it to my luthier to fix.

Tony Burns & Dru Edwards: ^ yea I think that covers why I wanna take the risk :). No fretboard bindings to worry about either. Its literally a whisker off each side and it should make a world of difference.

Thanks all :guitar:

Look into fretboard "rolled edges" and see if that's something that might fit your situation/desires.

There are YouTube videos a plenty on how to do this.

Just break out the Sawz-All and the angle grinder and have at it! Shouldn't be more than a thirty second job. That's the beauty of power tools. :D

Yeah - someone shoulda warned Clarence that altering that sound hole would make that guitar worthless . . .

Rudy and others have internet articles about narrowing necks without removing frets. I searched "narrowing electric guitar neck convert mandolin".

The large pad of a belt sander (hand held or table top) will be easier to handle than a circular sander or grinder. Use sandpaper suitable for cutting metal such as used for pin nailed oak floors. Go gently with multiple shallow passes. Cut some sheet metal guards protect djacent surfaces.


https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/t...o-octave-mando

^^^^^^^^^^
What Frank said!

Rolling the edges will remove the ‘sharpness’ you complain about and make it much more comfortable in the hand - you won’t be structurally altering the neck, just making it feel like one of those old, much-played, vintage instruments. It’s quick and easy to do with far less chance of messing-up than if you start trying to shave the neck down narrower, it doesn’t require any re-finishing and, done carefully, it won’t harm the value of the guitar.

If it were my guitar and caused me discomfort, rolling the fretboard edges would be my solution.

Here’s Dan Erlewine on the subject… https://youtu.be/1I91qSfUQiU

…and Chris Walsh Custom Guitars’ take… https://youtu.be/OsfoOAJttyc