Okay, so I started my first build a little over a year ago. It was a solid wood Tabak cigar box. I thought, "For my first one I will go all out so that subsequent builds will just be a sinch!". I went for a fretted, 4-stringer.
I used red oak for the neck, no finger board originally. I used some old Gibson tuners I had lying around, and wired a Fender neck pickup in series with a piezo disk (placed under the bridge position). Things were going great. I cut out star sound holes to match the stars in the logo on the box. It looked sharp. But once I strung her up I soon realized the frets were off and she wouldn't intonate for anything. I learned I didn't measure correctly from the middle of the nut bolt.
Now, so you know, instead of giving up I built 2 fretless (which turned out great and sold quickly) and a dulcimer scale, fretted Cookie-tin-jo (which took some additional work but now intonates and plays great). So, now to my question (and back to my first failed build)...
I decided to fix this I would remove the frets (which by the way are pieces of coat hanger I slotted the neck for and glued into place). After filling in the slots and fret markers I added an 8th inch fingerboard on top of the existing neck. I then cut slots and glued the old bits of wire back down, but this time I added a zero fret and marked off my 25" scale measuring from the zero fret.
My harmonics work fine (as they did previously), but the actual fret intonation is still off. Could this be because of the huge bolt I am using for a string guide? Can the strings actually rest on the zero fret, and should they? Should I slot the bolt (string guide)? The action is set to about a 16th to three 32nds of an inch at the first fret, and about two to three 16ths of an inch at the 12th fret (will provide pics if need be when I can). By the way, the zero fret is a slightly larger diameter (gauge) wire than the other frets (think of it as 12 gauge vs. 14).
I am more sad and disappointed than frustrated (although extremely frustrated). Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Replies
Your question has been answered already but for fret spacing I use this:
http://www.ekips.org/tools/guitar/fretfind2d/
Then just print it out and tape it to the fretboard. Check that your printer is printing to scale.
Brian:
On Measuring fret slots:
Measuring from an existing guitar is very difficult and not very accurate. Decide on the scale length that you want and go to The Stewart Macdonald site and you can get a fret spacing guide for any scale length and any number of frets. Make your measurments from the nut or zero fret. I bought a good quality stainless steel 24" ruler at a stationery store for about $6. It has inches and metric. I actually filed little notches where every fret goes on the ruler, for future fretboards.
Measure VERY carefully and be sure your saw cuts are exactly perpendicular to the neck. I spent 4 or 5 hours cutting slots on my first guitar. Now I can easily do one in 15 minutes.
Another dumb question then... how do you measure decimals? I have been measuring the best I can using the Stewart Mac calculator, but apparently that's getting me off by about an 8th of an inch by the 12th fret. I am half tempted to buy one of their $40 fret scales...
get a simple metric/sae yard stick with inches on one side and centimeters (divided in 1/10s) on the other. Harbor freight $ 4, Lowes $ 6...
buying a $ 40 fret scale locks you into that particular scale length. You don't learn much by following someone else's pattern (not against patterns, but need to make them yourself), and your stuck if you want to try a different scale length or even a different instrument all together.
I may actually have such a ruler already. I will need to double check. How accurate does the measurement need to be (as far as the first fret for a 25" scale is 35.640mm or 1.403"), can I round the decimals? 35.6mm would be 35mm and 6 lines past it, or if measuring using centimeters would 3.6 work, or will that throw me off rounding like that?
I am sorry to sound like an idiot here over some extremely small measurements, but they appear to add up (and not in a good way for me). I am just trying to wrap my brain around this before screwing up my next fretting job when I try to refret this guitar and the very next build I have put on hold because of these issues.
By the way, thanks for everyone's support. I appreciate the words of wisdom as well as the pats on the back and reassurance.
round to nearest mm, or if you are real finicky and have good eyes, you can try 1/2 mm....
35.6 mm would be 3 cm's plus 5.6 marks past (if you're really obsessive) or about half way between the 5th and 6th mark past the 3 cm.... (yes, you can round everything, so that would be 3 cm plus the 6th mark past.
I'm found the a 24" scale works for me and is comfortable for many players, so I have the near equivalent of 610mm permanently marked on my ruler (24in = 609.60mm). If I'm doing a custom build for someone wanting something different, or I'm building something like a bass or a uke, I go to the Stew-Mac fret calculator http://www.stewmac.com/FretCalculator/ and measure of the distances to the nearest mm.
Brian,
Convert your scale length in inches to metric. Use the Stew-Mac calculator in millimeters. Much easier. Use a metric ruler.
Gary
I think the strings should contact the zero fret. Then the "nut" (bolt) becomes simply a string guide.
I am not an expert, because I don't use a zero fret. And, as you found out, it is difficult to measure from a round nut for proper scale length. So, I use a more or less standard plastic or bone nut. It is easy to measure from. If you are measuring from a bolt type nut or bridge, you want to measure from where the string leaves the bolt. A little difficult to do precisely.
It is cheap to buy those plastic or bone nuts. You will probably have to cut or grind them to fit a 4 stringer. Not hard to do. Also fretwire is cheap and much easier to deal with than wire, coathangers, windshield wiper blade inserts, etc. Give it a try
My first two guitars had the frets right on the neck too. I was terrified of making a mistake when fretting them and having to scrap the whole neck. Or put a new fretboard on top of it like you did. Now I make the fretboard separately and glue it to the neck. Congratulations on your perseverance with that neck.
Gary
no one answered the question "can (and should) the strings rest on the zero fret?".... YES, YES, YES... otherwise your CBG thinks the bolt/string guide is the bridge and all the spacing will be off. Your scale length will be from the Zero fret to the bridge. If it's still intonating badly, then the next suspect is string height.... One of the strengths of zero fret setup is usually nice fast action... ditch the coathanger wire for real frets. Too much work for inconsistant results....
Thanks again Sam, I have some pics to post on my phone, but barely have time to type out this reply (wife is out of town and I got my two kids running around getting into everything). Thanks for the advise, I wasn't sure about the zero fret, just something to try (just never had or made one). If I can't get this figured out I am probably going to have to trash the neck and start over. But before I do anything that brash I will post some pics on here.
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