Double Cut Santana build

[Gaber]

Hello Howie, thanks for replay.

I am from Slovenia (EU). I often buy items from England. Shipping cost are cheaper in your country than here. I made two Santana bodies a few years ago. One with mahagony back, one with alder back. Now I have little more time, but I Didn`t start to curve them yet. I am waiting for some tremolo, humbucker spec. If it will be to expensive, do you have some drawings? Santana has 24 frets? I don't remember anymore. I had prs Custom 24 - 94year. Fantastic guitar, with very small neck hill. Now they Are nightmare! I mean neck hill (tenon).

[howie123]

Matt, the body is angled from the back edge of the bridge pickup toward the horns so the neck appears to have an angle if you choose to use a Trem, this angle allows a standard trem to float slightly as the base of it should be set co planar to the fretboard. In effect the neck does have an angle, but the angle is the same as the body slope giving a relative zero degree angle to the bridge, however, should you choose to use a wrap around gibson style bridge or a TOM bridge you would then require a steeper neck angle than the body slope to set the strings at the correct height for the bridge you have at hand ... usually its around 4 or 5 degrees steeper but that is also dependent on high above the body the neck sits. If it stands quite proud it would require less angle to create the height of the strings at the bridge to allow a good action to be set up.
Get the bridge you plan to use first and install it in the body so that you have something to actually measure from before you glue in the neck..... leaving the heel of the neck taller/deeper than you require will allow you to cut/plane the neck angle into the heel... as you remove the excess material from the heel by cutting the angle dry fit the neck to the body and clamp into place , use a straight edge resting on the fretboard and extending to the bridge to see if there are any gaps either under the straight edge on the fretboard or beneath the straight edge to the saddles on the bridge. The bridge should be set at its lowest setting for this stage ! If there is a gap between the straight edge and the bridge that is more than the height of the fret you intend to use plus the height of the lowest action you require then the neck should be set slightly lower into the body to reduce this gap or the neck angle could be altered slightly untill the straight edge rests in the fretboard and clears the bridge by about 2mm or even rests on the bridge ( the bridge will then need to be raised to set the action using the screw in posts) then the neck can be fretted and glued in .
If the gaps under the straight edge are at the neck ie the straight edge is resting in the bridge saddles and the nut location and the gap gets bigger toward the bridge then the neck angle will need to be increased until there are no gaps on the fretboard and a small gap at the saddle location appears. When you reach this stage you can glue the neck in and proceed with the build.... the bridge again will need to be raised to set the correct action , but you will be able to set it at its lowest possible playable height and still have some adjustment either way.....I hope this makes sense and helps

[howie123]

Gaber , the Santana model is a shorter scale than a standard PRS but the guitar I made used the standard 25"PRS scale and 24 frets. the templates I have include the trem cavity based on the 25"scale... I did have a cad drawing on an old computer , If i can find it I'll post the link to it on here....

[Gaber]

Hello, that is also my plan, wish. Santana body with custom 24, ce 24 hardware and thin wide neck with 24 frets. Thanks in advance. What do you think about prs like tremolo from awm guitars from germany?

[Matthew Jenkins]

Thanks for the in depth reply Howie - it makes perfect sense and is very useful. Much obliged

Mat