I hate a neck-heavy guitar, I’m sorry but there it is. And now I’m trying to design a fairly small-bodied lightweight guitar with the neck join at the 17th fret. I reckon that spells trouble!
Ae there any tricks for working out how a guitar will balance so that I can compensate if necessary?
Jack of all trades and master of my own destiny. It’s only a small destiny.
Some guitars are inherently neck heavy but there are some things you can do:
The simplest way to make it balance is to make the top horn roughly level with the 12th fret - easy with some shapes but impossible with others.
when the guitar is nearly done - you can hold the body where you intend to put the strap studs - move them around until you get the best balance then mark and drill those positions.
There are guitars with counterweights in the body but of course that adds overall weight which is not ideal.
Measure twice, cut once...