DIY Tenor Guitars?

Tenor guitar:

Building a guitar from scratch is not a option, but converting a smallish acoustic guitar into a tenor guitar could be an option.

All it takes is to change and file the nut, change or modify the bridge, change and file the saddle.

I have been told that the tools to do that are very expensive (especially the file).

Has anybody had a go at amateur luthiery? What would be the investment? I am not talking of expensive CNS machines and all that jazz, just enough to do change nut, bridge and saddle?

I don't mind investing a couple of £100s if this is coming back after a couple of conversions.

There are quite a few luthiers on YouTube ...

I've made several instruments, including a rather nice Tenor Guitar. All you need (apart from the wood, strings and hardware) are: some drawings, a bending iron, something to thickness the timber, a Japanese pull saw, fret files, nut files, lots of small clamps ... can't think of much else that isn't "standard". You would make the mould and the rest of the jigs as you went along. Converting a standard steel-string guitar might not be acoustically optimum and the neck would be a bit wide - you'd need to think about scale length too. There seem to be plenty of cheap'ish TGs available - check Thomann, for example.

There are sets of files made to precise widths to fit the strings. The full set is somewhat pricey - but that is more due to the number of files:

Yes but I am not an upper class bastard who can trow £ 5000 on a hand made guitar!

I don't think Mr Jethro was suggesting that you should buy from those people but that you might want to watch videos of them at work.

Nick

I think you might be, as we English like to say, "putting the cart before the horse." Good tools won't turn you into a talented craftsman any more than a good pair of football boots will make you a soccer superstar but if you have basic competency with woodworking tools and the confidence to use them then the specialist equipment can come later.

You never really answered some of my questions when you brought up this subject before and to be honest those answers are more than somewhat germain to moving forward on this. Care to revisit them?

As nomail suggested in snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net> you are unlikely to be satisfied by trying to convert something that began life as something different but if you really don't want to start from scratch a robust rebuild of a poor quality or badly built original could give you an instrument to enjoy. If you have built up other craft skills you can do it, even if you've never specifically worked on instruments before. With imagination you can use those tools you already have access to in order to achieve most of the work and can make or adapt most of the others. (eg Nut files are great - I have loads of them - but a ground-down junior hacksaw blade will get you out of trouble with nut slots most of the time. Etc. Etc.)

YouTube videos are excellent if that's your preferred way of learning but visiting makers in their workshops taught me a lot. The London College of Furniture Musical Instrument Making course is long gone but its students and teachers are still working all over London and beyond. Go and see some of them.

Finally, being in the company of people who are doing craft for enjoyment can be a great experience as you all teach and learn together. Although FE Evening classes in woodwork etc are mostly something from the past (I used to teach instrument making at an evening class in the Tec in Southend-on-Sea) U3A has all sorts of opportunities all over the place and it doesn't matter if you are not a pensioner yet but absolutely fine if you are.

Nick

I was only a professional stringed instrument maker for 49 years before I retired so I'm still a beginner really;-)

Nick

At a pinch, no mods are necessary.

Simply restring the instrument with the four strings of your choice, omitting the two E strings.

You wouldn't need to spend that much.

Quality vintage tenor guitars can be had for MUCH less than that.

How about a 1963 Gibson for £1,100 (in the UK at that)?

Or a reasonable quality new instrument from about £200?

Le 01/10/2024 à 21:24, Nick Odell a écrit :

The tenor guitar started literally by sticking a tenor banjo neck onto a standard guitar body, so, yes, you can inject new life into something that began as something different.

The guitar itself began as a modification of the lute.

Well, Sir, no!

They will most likely need at the very least a good setup if not a full neck reset.

I can highly recommend the short instrument-making courses at West Dean. When accommodation is added-in they aren't cheap, and the West Dean "experience" (food, staff, access to workshops, bar stocks) is not what it was a few years ago, but it's still a great place to spend time. More info here:

A vintage flat-top instrument could well require that sort of major attention. But you either want one or you don't. Either position is fair enough.

New instruments from respected factories and importers should NOT need anything like such drastic intervention. If a neck reset were necessary, the instrument should be returned for a replacement swap-out.

Acoustic guitars only start getting reasonable in action and sound at (approximately) the £200 mark. As I am sure you are aware, a USA-made instrument would be at least £1,000 for an entry-level item.

I thought I had written a reply here, but it hasn't shown up. A couple of points:

- use a feeler gauge and cut slots in the appropriate 'leaf' to make saws of the thickness matching the string

- then polish out with folded emery cloth or similar

- don't buy the ultra-cheap 'nut files' that are on eBay for a fiver or so. They are worse than useless

I have fettled a few instruments, including some high quality ones, with this kind of method.

HTH J^n