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Permalink Reply by Tom on July 21, 2012 at 10:35am

Ok, so what I am getting is one just cant decide to put the saddle/bridge wherever they want, then put frets in from who knows what scale lenght and have the tones come out all nice sounding ( which mine havent )

You start with a desired scale lenght - detemine the fret spacing - then place the saddle/bridge at your desired scale lenght measurement. And then all the frets should sound as they should, or at the least sound a lot better than my hit or miss method.

Thanks again guys for the help and the excellent links.  And should I be able to pick up some used necks as Greg has, it is simply a measurement from nut to 12th fret as to what scale lenght it was made to.

EXCELLENT !!!! ITS ALWAYS IN THE DETAILS !!!  Now if I can just get them to look as pretty as some I see here :)

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Permalink Reply by Ryan Rose on July 21, 2012 at 12:52pm

Yep, that's pretty much it. I'm also a fan of putting the bridge wherever I want, so I do that first. I initially cut the neck too long, mark where on the box I want the bridge to go, then measure out the scale length to figure out where the nut goes. Then I chop off the excess at the end of the neck and mark out my frets, which are based on the predetermined scale length.

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Permalink Reply by Tom on July 21, 2012 at 1:50pm

I like that thought process. Lets me put the bridge where "I NEED IT " yet still give me what I want in a finished product.

 

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Permalink Reply by Jim Woods on July 22, 2012 at 6:27am

I have used a hit and miss method so far, but a rough formula for optimum scale length / box length / bridge placement (for a bridge at 25% of box length) may approximate the following.

For neck to box joint at 24th fret:  - quarter points & harmonics are at 5th, 12th and 24th frets

( box length x .75 ) x 4

For neck to box joint at 19th fret:   third points & harmonics are at 7th & 19th frets?

( box length x .75 ) x 3

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Permalink Reply by wormil on July 21, 2012 at 10:07pm

http://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/Fretting/i-fretcalc.html

Or, if you want to print it out (I do)

http://www.ekips.org/tools/guitar/fretfind2d/

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Permalink Reply by Randy S. Bretz on July 21, 2012 at 1:14pm

http://www.harpkit.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=...  this is what i use to figure out my fretting..works for both guitar and dulcimer

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Permalink Reply by Rand Moore on July 21, 2012 at 4:53pm

Hi All,

Perhaps the biggest problem with using guitar necks is that they are designed to be used with a rather large sound box, and most cigar boxes are small (too short) in comparison. As we are talking scale lengths here, the critical measurement will be the length of your cigar box and how that compares with a real full size guitar body's length. Sometimes the bridge location may fall close to (and in some cases, beyond) the tail end of the cigar box. From an acoustical guitar standpoint, the best place to located a bridge is toward the middle of the box, not to it far edge. So, you need to give some extra thought to the size of the box verses the size requirement of the neck in order to make agood CBG design around a pre-made guitar neck.

In actuallity, I'm no expert in this topic as all I build are 3- and 4-stringers for which I make my own necks. But, give the fact that building full size 6-string guitar necks with the tapered necks and all takes a lot of woodworking skill that I don't have, I'm interesting how other builders design their CBGs around pre-built 6-string guitar necks. And how do they attach them? Bolt on necks? Or, do you use neck extensions to make "Neck-almost-thru" designs, or what?

Also, If you do decide to build you own neck and fretboard, there are plenty of fret position calculators on the Internet (Google "fret calculator") to make all the calculations for you. For most amatuer builders (like myself), fret accuracy down to the closest millimeter is about as good as you have to get to get a reasonably good sounding guitar. The fret calculators like to carry their measurements to like 3 decimal places (a thousandth of a millimeter) is beyond most peoples skill in cutting fret slots, so don't sweat a little inacuracy. I round my numbers to the nearest tenth of a millimeter before going to cut the slots. That last tenth of a millimeter is usually a "best guess" when trying to eyeball it while cutting it by hand with a fretsaw. I get good results inspite of these inacuracies.

 

Just my 2 cents worth...

 

-Rand.

 

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Permalink Reply by Tom on July 21, 2012 at 5:03pm

WOW, gotta love it. So many folks with so much knowledge and willing to share.

Gotta love the Nation and the folks that make it up.

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Permalink Reply by Rand Moore on July 21, 2012 at 5:03pm

That should have read: "From an acoustical guitar standpoint, the best place to located a bridge is toward the middle of the box, not near the edge of the box.".

 

Now if my flakey wifii connection will let me post this correction...

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Permalink Reply by Rand Moore on July 21, 2012 at 5:18pm

Normally I'd re-edit my posting to elimonate most the typos, but my flakey wifii connection is,'t allowing the editor to come back up. So, please excuse my typos.

-Rand.

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on July 21, 2012 at 6:01pm

Rand is right about moving the bridge away from the edge IMHO. Closer to the edge gives you a spikier sound, but at the expense of volume it's very much like comparing a neck pickup to a bridge pickup.

There's a third factor that noones mentioned and it's this: where the neck joins the box. I'll often do 24 frets clear Of the box or tin to move my bridge in. With a bolt in neck this might be achieved by putting a stick thru for the neck to bolt into, but shimming it between the box an neck end to move the nut further from the box. Maybe put a mag pickup on there if that makes sense.

Have fun

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Permalink Reply by Rand Moore on July 28, 2012 at 8:35am

With 24 frets clear of the box, you are obviously building your own necks, or are adding an extension of some kind to a prebuilt neck. Most guitars have like 18 frets on the fretboard, with 12 frets over the neck and maybe 6 more over the sound box. If you had 24 on a typical guitar, some of those frets would overlap the sound hole. Because the measurements don't work in my mind, I 'd don't really see how a pre-built guitar neck is going to "properly fit" on a cigar bix unless you join two cigar boxes as the CBD (cigar bix dulcimer) folks do, or use another kind of box (maybe a wine bottle box), or unsless you build the sound box yourself. It seems to me, a single cigar box used with a pre-built standard sized guitar neck will result in a guitar with the bridge very close to the tail end of the box, resulting in poorer sond response.

You comments as to how the bridge sounds with pickup and amplifier when thebridge is too close to the edge of the box is interesting, as I hadn't tried that combination before. I was speaking from a purely accoustic CBG standpoint.

-Rand.

 

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