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Hi Guys.

I have a project thats been just sitting for close to a decade. Its an early 90's RG550. I had the Trem cavity routed and blocked with mahogany and the fretboard removed (after I wrecked it removing the frets).

Now, I need to get these projects cleaned up. I've been buyin g and playing great guitars but realised I have plenty of goodness just waiting to be cleaned up and finished.

So here's what I am planning on doing. I have a neck waiting for a fretboard and a body that is blank and waiting for a bridge. So Im planning on turning this into a Baritone. To make it a 27" Im going to have to add approx 3cm between the fret spacing and the bridge placement... was thinking 28'/5cm would be a bit of a stretch leaving the bridge too far back and the frets spaced out a lil too much, but 3cm seems a reasonable compromise between the two scale length points.

Im just asking for any input on this and if anyone has seen, or come across any examples of this done in their travels world/web wide.

I should add that I wont be doing this myself... its clearly out of my league, planning on talking to Glyn.

Input appreciated.

Usual approach is to have a longer neck without moving the bridge position (like the Warmoth conversion necks). But if you have a 25.5" neck without fretboard yet then it's probably easier to move the bridge position further down and lose a few higher frets.

Yeah was thinking of just going from 24 to 21 or 22 frets.

My main concern is the additional tension of an original wizard neck. Maybe have a slightly thicker fretboard added to slightly offset this.

If you lengthen the scale but use the same tuning then you'd be using lighter strings to retain a similar tension.

Yeah, will be dropping the tuning too so that should help

I'd like an old school strat but with a 25" scale like a PRS. I wonder if it would still sound like a strat though, or a little less snappy.

Aquila Rossa wrote:I'd like an old school strat but with a 25" scale like a PRS. I wonder if it would still sound like a strat though, or a little less snappy.

Have you aren't much time on a 25.5? It's worth persevering with

honestly for what you are doing I think you would be better off getting a new body made. You are going to have to fill in where the floyd is and that in itself is a pretty major job. you would also have to remove and fill the neck pick up

willow13 wrote:honestly for what you are doing I think you would be better off getting a new body made. You are going to have to fill in where the floyd is and that in itself is a pretty major job. you would also have to remove and fill the neck pick up

It has been routed and mahogany blocked a long time ago. Its essentially a blank with the exception of the Humbucker cavs

dayl wrote:

willow13 wrote:honestly for what you are doing I think you would be better off getting a new body made. You are going to have to fill in where the floyd is and that in itself is a pretty major job. you would also have to remove and fill the neck pick up

It has been routed and mahogany blocked a long time ago. Its essentially a blank with the exception of the Humbucker cavs

oh not so bad then ... only question now then is would what Mr Glyn charges you buy you a baritone guitar?

Potentially, but the options are fairly limited and none have really grabbed me within the $1000 range (sec hand). This would be my old much loved RG550 with a new lease on life and modded to my own specs. Glyn wouldn't be doing it all.

dayl wrote:Potentially, but the options are fairly limited and none have really grabbed me within the $1000 range (sec hand). This would be my old much loved RG550 with a new lease on life and modded to my own specs. Glyn wouldn't be doing it all.

well I would totally do it myself (but then I have built lots of guitars) so why not then

Are you planning to move the bridge pickup as well, or just leave further forward than the bridge?

willow13 wrote:
well I would totally do it myself (but then I have built lots of guitars) so why not then

Yeah, replacing, cutting and putting a radius isnt my thing at all.

Lostininverness wrote:Are you planning to move the bridge pickup as well, or just leave further forward than the bridge?

Yup, will extend the bridge pup cav back a bit further. Custom PG.