MIMF

Do you have any idea how long you want the neck to be?
I am not sure what a tenor scale length should be.
Is it like a ukelele or a mandolin?
If so you can measure those from the nut to the bridge to get the scale length.
Then go to stewmac and use the fret calculator to give you the exact placement of frets.

The shorter the scale length most likely your neck will be to thin for a bolt on pocket with out modification and you would must likely have to relocate the bridge toward the neck so you will almost certainly lose the bridge pick up.
So as a result you would either cover the holes with some custom pick guard or fill in the holes and have to repaint or the easier way would to just build a new body.

As i found out with my second build not any neck fist any body with the right intonation I had a 24 fret neck and tried to attach it to a satndard strat body. which did not work but I recovered from my various temper tantrums and got on another forum and was asked where did I get the neck (ebay) what kind of neck was it (ibanez) and was told that I had to re rout the neck pocket. which went in to the neck pickup rout which then I had to redo the neck pick up rout.
I tell you this because when you start in this its hard to know all the questions to ask and the ppl who would offer you advise want to help but until you start and run into a problem they don't know what to tell you.
I have read several books and done simple builds but still run into problems, but unless you can go to a Luther school there is no other way than to take the plunge and give it a try. When you run into trouble then you'll have specific questions to solve a particular problem.

Hope some of that helps

You could convert a Tele, Strat or LP to a tenor by using a capo on, say, the 3rd fret and using suitable string gauges in the proper 4 positions. That would be an easy conversion but not really a true tenor guitar. Keith Richards does something like that on a lot of Rolling Stones songs with open G tunings on the first 5 strings capoed up a little and he can make it sound pretty good. I think he even takes off the 6th string sometimes. I've often thought of making a 5 string with a shorter scale and open G tuning but not sure I've ever seen anyone do that.

I don't think you can just cut down a kit neck, though, since it will probably already have a truss rod and fret wire installed. Also, it will be wider than the tenor neck and trying to trim it down and reshape the back would be as much work as making and shaping a new one anyway. As others have suggested, you could build a neck and body for a Tele style guitar easily enough. Scale length seems to be somewhere around 21" to 23" and nut width varies a little, too, but about 1 1/4" seems about right based on my StewMac nut ruler. The thinner neck will need a smaller neck pocket at the body and the shorter scale would probably need a slightly smaller body than the full scale one. Also, the pickup positions would probably need to be adjusted a little for the new scale length. A good scale drawing would be good. I downloaded a Tele plan and you could have that printed out a little smaller to get the right scale length. You may also need a little shorter truss rod which is easy enough to cut down from a standard one-way as used in Strats and Teles. Lipstick or bar type pickups could be angled a little so they don't stick out so far past the string width but I don't know if there are readily available 4 string pickups, although you could wind your own. The bridge could be made from wood, aluminum, brass or steel but not sure if the saddles from, say, a Tele or Strat would work without some modification. You could use a bone nut and wood saddle. Maybe a hollow Tele would be really sweet.

Warren May wrote:You could convert a Tele, Strat or LP to a tenor by using a capo on, say, the 3rd fret and using suitable string gauges in the proper 4 positions. That would be an easy conversion but not really a true tenor guitar. Keith Richards does something like that on a lot of Rolling Stones songs with open G tunings on the first 5 strings capoed up a little and he can make it sound pretty good. I think he even takes off the 6th string sometimes. I've often thought of making a 5 string with a shorter scale and open G tuning but not sure I've ever seen anyone do that.

I don't think you can just cut down a kit neck, though, since it will probably already have a truss rod and fret wire installed. Also, it will be wider than the tenor neck and trying to trim it down and reshape the back would be as much work as making and shaping a new one anyway. As others have suggested, you could build a neck and body for a Tele style guitar easily enough. Scale length seems to be somewhere around 21" to 23" and nut width varies a little, too, but about 1 1/4" seems about right based on my StewMac nut ruler. The thinner neck will need a smaller neck pocket at the body and the shorter scale would probably need a slightly smaller body than the full scale one. Also, the pickup positions would probably need to be adjusted a little for the new scale length. A good scale drawing would be good. I downloaded a Tele plan and you could have that printed out a little smaller to get the right scale length. You may also need a little shorter truss rod which is easy enough to cut down from a standard one-way as used in Strats and Teles. Lipstick or bar type pickups could be angled a little so they don't stick out so far past the string width but I don't know if there are readily available 4 string pickups, although you could wind your own. The bridge could be made from wood, aluminum, brass or steel but not sure if the saddles from, say, a Tele or Strat would work without some modification. You could use a bone nut and wood saddle. Maybe a hollow Tele would be really sweet.

There are a Several of options for 4 string pickups and 1, 2, and 3 Here is one such but there are several more out there.
http://tedcrocker.com/stonehenge.html

I ran a search on google.co.uk.

The first entry yields this definition:

"Bolt-in Neck
The bolt-in neck is commonly confused with the bolt-on neck. A bolt-on neck is attached to a flange that protrudes out from the body of the guitar (as much as four inches). The bolt-in neck actually bolts in through the back of the guitar, which combines the advantages of a bolt-on neck with those of a deep, set neck. Some guitar maker's assert that this gives the neck better stability, tone, and sustain, plus as an added bonus you can reach higher up the neck of the guitar since the heel of the bolt-in neck is hidden inside the body of the guitar. Bolt-in necks can be found on guitars made by PRS and Taylor. Fender and Ibanez use bolt-on necks, while guitars employing set-neck construction can be found on models by Gibson, Epiphone, and Guild. "

Source: http://www.sweetwater.com/expert-center ... olt-inNeck
Search string: http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en-GB ... arch&gbv=1

I can't judge the quality of the resource. The search also yield some images as the second option.

There are a Several of options for 4 string pickups and 1, 2, and 3 Here is one such but there are several more out there.
http://tedcrocker.com/stonehenge.html[/quote]

Oh and I forgot this one friend of mine actually bought from this place and they sounded really good.
http://www.unclerobspickups.com/products.htm

Came across this web site. has at least 15 parts to it.
randallprice dot com/musical-instruments/building-tenor-guitar/

As someone who has played and modified guitars for years but only just last year started my first build, Mark, I might be able to "translate" for you?
A tenor guitar would have a shorter neck than a standard guitar, right? I have owned two guitars with short-scale necks that bolted onto standard guitar bodies with the usual 4 screws from behind. Here is how you can make such a neck:

1) If you go to the Stewart MacDonald website or order a catalog from them, you will find pre-slotted fingerboards. It is easy to shorten the scale by simply cutting off the fingerboard at one of the fret slots. Then you just make a neck to fit the shorter fingerboard. I believe cutting the fingerboard off at the first slot (the one that is farthest from the edge) from a 25.5" would give you something in the range of a 23-inch scale.

2) If building a neck from scratch sounds too difficult, then you could search for a guitar with the short-scale neck (on eBay?). Once you have that shorter neck you could fill the tuner key holes and redrill for just 4 holes and replace the plastic string divider (called a "nut" for reasons I do not understand) with only 4 string slots and be done. I do not know if you can find a neck with the exact scale you are looking for, but it seems plausible.
The two that I owned both worked by having fewer frets to the end, so that the nut was the correct distance from the bridge to allow a 20-inch scale to work on a body intended for a 24 2/4" scale. (I know this because I swapped the neck back and forth on one of the guitars and carefully compared them.)
These short-scale necks were sold as "student guitars" in the 1960s. I do not know if they still make them. Be warned, though, that "short scale" is a relative term - I just did a quick eBay search and the first "short scale" neck to appear is actually a 25" scale neck!
Of the two I owned, one was more like 23" and the other couldn't have been more than 15-20 inches. It's been years, but I remember it being REALLY short. I just did a quick Google search and found that a tenor guitar scale is typically 23 inches. I think that would not be too difficult to find.

Cutting the head off of a finished neck to shorten it will cause all kinds of problems because of the truss rod, a metal rod that runs through the neck to keep the neck straight.

3) Your third possibility is to find someone who will just make the neck for you. They will have to be clever enough to figure out not just how to make a neck with a 23-inch scale and 4 tuners, but also to figure out where to end the neck at the body so that it sits in the correct location for the body so that the bridge is properly located relative to the nut. A short-scale neck that is just bolted onto a standard guitar body cannot be properly tuned - the distance between each end of the string (the "nut" and the "bridge") must be correct to allow for tuning.

I will agree with Rodger that building a neck from scratch is not as difficult as it sounds although it does require some specialized equipment - a table saw, band saw, and a joiner are pretty indespensible, along with a couple hand tools like a really good plane and a spoke shave. There are plenty of books on how to do it, along with many YouTube videos showing a variety of different approaches. As long as you end up with something that is straight the rest is just appearances. I had very little woodworking experience and after one scrapped attempt I managed to make a neck that looks just fine.

Either way, Good luck to you!