Now that you have your guitar design elements, lets draw something!

The first thing that we have to do to start our guitar design is to plan the guitar scale (lenght), sound endeavor depends of the scale (sustain, pinch harmonics,etc). Most Fender, Washburn and Ibanez guitars have an 25-1/2″ scale, while Gibson Les Paul guitars have an 24-1/2” scale and Paul Reed Smith guitars have an intermediate 25” scale.

Of course we can use a totally different scale, but just do that if you want to experiment with this, if you want to build a “normal” guitar just use one ofthe previous scales. Remember this… the 12th fret is right in the middle of the scale

So… draw this:

Draw the guitar scale

Now we have to put some frets there, you can put all the frets you want… but the normal number is between 22 and 24. If you want something like 32 frets you will only have space for a humbucker, 24 frets is great cause  you’ll have space for HSH, HSS or HH pickup configuration. The 17.818 formula its really easy to use and we can use it to  calculate the distance between frets, for more info about the 17.818 formula CLICK HERE

The 24th fret must be in the middle of the 12th fret and the end of the scale.

draw the frets!

Now it’s time to think about the neck’s width, 6 string guitar necks use to have a 43mm width in the scales beginning (nut) and 57mm at the end of the scale. Of course, if you want a 7 or 8 string guitar try 48mm at the nut and 62mm at the end of the scale. Now we can put some inlays there too!

put some inlays there!

And just like that we have designed our own guitar fretboard and scale, leave a comment if you want to ask something! or maybe contact me and send me a pic of your own fretboard!