carvin neckthrough : left-handed -> right handed cutaway

[greekdude]

Hello, this is an ambitious one.
I have this left-handed guitar here Carvin DC135 1988, which i have converted to right hand, a long time ago. I bought this used and real cheap.

well not in this state, but you get the point. It plays very good, but access to the last frets suck, it is equivalent of a 21 fret guitar, so i kind of loose the last 3 frets.

How possible is to route the guitar to make for a deeper cut away, i.e. to be on par with the upper , original cutaway?

Is that suicidal? will it damage the static forces of the guitar, ruining it?

please share your views!

 

[jon the art guy]

Re: carvin neckthrough : left-handed -> right handed cutaway

U go grl. If the tones get gooched, just get new pickups

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[CTN]

Re: carvin neckthrough : left-handed -> right handed cutaway

........so let me get this straight. you took a left guitar, turned it into a righty, and now you want the upper fret access of a regular righty guitar?

a) why don't you just buy a regular righty instead?

b) theoretically you could reshape that cut away to give you better access. you'd have to be real careful to not take away too much wood from the area surrounding the neck pocket though. The furthest back you should go is matching the cutaway that your strap button is on right now. It will change the balance a little bit, seeing as you are removing some mass from the body, but it's not a ton of mass so it should still be alright, as long as the tuning heads aren't super heavy. If they are, it could neck dive a bit.

It certainly wouldn't RUIN the guitar, but it will need a refinish.

 

[jon the art guy]

Re: carvin neckthrough : left-handed -> right handed cutaway

I was assuming he wanted 2 lower bouts as cutaways. Its a neck thru so unless it cuts into electronics, there isn't going to be a huge tonal change. I was also assuming OP was going to refinish.
I may be wrong on everything.

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[KeeperOS]

Re: carvin neckthrough : left-handed -> right handed cutaway

Yeah, it should be a neck-thru so I doubt there's going to be stability issues but it will change the tone an unknown amount and to an unknown direction.

it will need re-finishing after that though...

Are you gonna do it yourself?

 

[greekdude]

Re: carvin neckthrough : left-handed -> right handed cutaway

........so let me get this straight. you took a left guitar, turned it into a righty, and now you want the upper fret access of a regular righty guitar?

a) why don't you just buy a regular righty instead?

b) theoretically you could reshape that cut away to give you better access. you'd have to be real careful to not take away too much wood from the area surrounding the neck pocket though. The furthest back you should go is matching the cutaway that your strap button is on right now. It will change the balance a little bit, seeing as you are removing some mass from the body, but it's not a ton of mass so it should still be alright, as long as the tuning heads aren't super heavy. If they are, it could neck dive a bit.

It certainly wouldn't RUIN the guitar, but it will need a refinish.

Hey, thanx for your input. I already have 3 other right handed guitars, which i personally set up, so i am in no need for another 6-string right-handed guitar.
My main questions were about ruining the strength of the guitar. This guitar has already undergone heavy mods : self-routed for right handed floyd rose, overhauled all elecronics, converting a HSS, one vol, one pot, 3 on-off switches to H-S, one vol, one 3-way switch, self installed, drilled, shimmed right hand top-mount gotoh nut to replace already existing schaller nut, self installed DMZ SD bridge + DMZ Air Norton S neck, so it has become smth personal along the years... I can't and won't ever sell it, partly because nobody wants to buy this monsterstein, and partly because i really like it, especially its pantera-like harmonics..... just superb...
I was just thinking of ways to improve it even more... but not ruining it...

 

[greekdude]

Re: carvin neckthrough : left-handed -> right handed cutaway

I was assuming he wanted 2 lower bouts as cutaways. Its a neck thru so unless it cuts into electronics, there isn't going to be a huge tonal change. I was also assuming OP was going to refinish.
I may be wrong on everything.

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No you aint wrong bro. Electronics are not an issue. Only problem is strength of the neck... I wouldn't risk ruining it.

 

[greekdude]

Re: carvin neckthrough : left-handed -> right handed cutaway

Yeah, it should be a neck-thru so I doubt there's going to be stability issues but it will change the tone an unknown amount and to an unknown direction.

it will need re-finishing after that though...

Are you gonna do it yourself?

Ευχαριστώ αδερφέ,

hmmm so you think there are gonna be change of tonality issues here.... sustain issues maybe??? now... if that is the case i simply would not risk this.... I can reach 22th fret easily, with the 3rd finger tho, so i doubt i would take that risk. At least not on my own.

I am on the waiting list of oikonomakis (enigmagt), for another job (refret of an old Kramer 210), that i think i have managed to overcome my self by leveling, crowning, dressing, so instead of the kramer, i might give him the carvin at least for some kind of assessement, if its doable, etc... I have phoned the guy and sounds prettty decent + all the positive reviews... whatcha say?

 

[jon the art guy]

Re: carvin neckthrough : left-handed -> right handed cutaway

if it's a neck through and it's a Carvin, you should be able to just cut the sides off and it'll still be playable. The body is just a pair of glued-on wings to make it not look like a stick.



IF your guitar hasn't folded in half yet, it probably won't.

There's a science to the sustain of a guitar that I won't ever grasp, but usually leaving more wood on is key to it and having the proper shape is the other. Both can probably be overcome with judicious application of loud-a$$ pickups.

 

[kramersteen]

Re: carvin neckthrough : left-handed -> right handed cutaway

Just get your wood rasp in there and start going for it until you are happy.

 

[kramersteen]

Re: carvin neckthrough : left-handed -> right handed cutaway

No you aint wrong bro. Electronics are not an issue. Only problem is strength of the neck... I wouldn't risk ruining it.

That's not an issue imo, If that neck had no wings you could still play it and it would be strong.

I mean if my project 36 is stable with a neck this long then i dont think you're going to have any problems taking an inch or so of wood out

 

[J E C]

Re: carvin neckthrough : left-handed -> right handed cutaway

Stability wise, you could cut that entire lower front bout off and turn it into a tier drop shape and not hurt it and it mite not hurt how it balances either seeing how close to the front strap button that material/weight is. Tone wise.....that is another animal, no one can say.

 

[greekdude]

Re: carvin neckthrough : left-handed -> right handed cutaway

Thanx a lot guys!!
Very much appreciated!

Googling for "wood rasp"

I have one which i can attach to the power drill. Is it a good option? or should i go by hand?

 

[kramersteen]

Re: carvin neckthrough : left-handed -> right handed cutaway

Drill rasp? eh i said eh? Nar just go for those hand ones, get a flat, semi circular and maybe a round one. Your local hardware will have some cheap ones that will work well. Just make sure you dont damage the side of the fretboard when doing it.... Another tip i can recommend is when you start getting to the point when you are happy draw some pencil marks over the area you have carved out, Once you do that start rasping away again and you will see the high and low spots where the pencil has worn away or remained. Its a good visual aid to work off.

I have my own dc127c but still i am jealous of your lefty mod:laughing: Seriously sounds like some fun to me. I love conversions and mods, The more wacky the better.

 

[greekdude]

Re: carvin neckthrough : left-handed -> right handed cutaway

^^^ Hey thanks, i am not sure i grasped the pencil trick (english is not my native tang), but when i get to this, i will have to give it a thorough reading. Maybe it is supposed to be means not to carve away too much wood? I have never done extensive or serious wood work before. Some wood plugging, glueing and redrilling is the most i have done.

About mods, i agree! i have ended up setting up all my guitars, + all kind of electronics included. Fret dressing and electronics are my strong points i'd say. I have brought back from the dead my old Kramer 210 : complete electronics renewal + fret dressing/crowing.

PS
About project 36, those fret intervals seem tiny man, what's up with those? is it a 24 fret guitar?

 

[kramersteen]

Re: carvin neckthrough : left-handed -> right handed cutaway

Watch what he does around the 1minute mark in this video.

Project 36 has 36 frets thats why it has such tiny spacing.

 

[KeeperOS]

Re: carvin neckthrough : left-handed -> right handed cutaway

Ευχαριστώ αδερφέ,

hmmm so you think there are gonna be change of tonality issues here.... sustain issues maybe??? now... if that is the case i simply would not risk this.... I can reach 22th fret easily, with the 3rd finger tho, so i doubt i would take that risk. At least not on my own.

I am on the waiting list of oikonomakis (enigmagt), for another job (refret of an old Kramer 210), that i think i have managed to overcome my self by leveling, crowning, dressing, so instead of the kramer, i might give him the carvin at least for some kind of assessement, if its doable, etc... I have phoned the guy and sounds prettty decent + all the positive reviews... whatcha say?

Like others said, when you take out wood the sound will change. Not necessarily for the worse but no-one can tell you that before hand.

About Oikonomakis, well, I also had heard great things about him so at one point I took him two of my guitars including my (then) favorite for a setup and a couple of medium difficulty operations (some semi-complex wiring and installing a Tremol-No).

Now it might just be that he wasn't all that wow-ed by what I had asked of him (which if true is in itself unprofessional) but I got the feeling that I got his Monday-sloppies. His B-tier work. He gave me to try out his Enigma 04-006 guitar (the red with gold hardware) and I found it to be a great and very comfortable Soloist clone but the work he did on my own guitars left me unimpressed.

After that I got back to my usual tech, Andreas Kourbis (has a store with his father Panagiotis on Themistokleous at Eksarxeia) who might not claim to be building guitars of their own (although Panagiotis IS building his own amps now which BTW kick some serious butt) but every time I take him one of my guitars I get her in the same best looking, feeling, sounding and playing condition as the previous time.

 

[greekdude]

Re: carvin neckthrough : left-handed -> right handed cutaway

Aha.... Thanx for letting me know... Kourbis, i;ll have them in mind
I personally had exceptional experience with Ntoukas at Giannena (refreted my very first Aria strat), but i dont drive home that often, so taking gear to him is hard.

 

[kramersteen]

Re: carvin neckthrough : left-handed -> right handed cutaway

man its nice seeing you WOG brothers communicating on here :9: Would you guys believe my family owns land in Greece? The house on it looks like a Flintstones hut haha! Its been in the family for generations I haven't visited but my mum has and she loved it.

 

[KeeperOS]

Re: carvin neckthrough : left-handed -> right handed cutaway

Aha.... Thanx for letting me know... Kourbis, i;ll have them in mind
I personally had exceptional experience with Ntoukas at Giannena (refreted my very first Aria strat), but i dont drive home that often, so taking gear to him is hard.

Yeah, I have heard great things about Ntoukas but back when I was at Giannena (my first year at the university) I had only just begun playing and didn't even know what a setup was. Seems unreal now...
Unfortunately I haven't been back there since except for a two-three days visit to one of my old university buddies but that too was many many years ago...
*Sigh* how time flies...

man its nice seeing you WOG brothers communicating on here :9: Would you guys believe my family owns land in Greece? The house on it looks like a Flintstones hut haha! Its been in the family for generations I haven't visited but my mum has and she loved it.

Heh, you're lucky I even know what WOG means, very very few people outside Australia do. I also know it's meant in a derogatory way yet Australian WOGs wear it as a badge of honor.
Interestingly enough it makes sense to me!
Well, the way things are now with not much disposable income, next time you plan on a vacation I guess you could try that, although it would depend on the condition it's in.