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A couple more questions.

Posted by Vince Cyr on August 19, 2014 at 8:50pm in Building Secrets, Tips, Advice, Discussion

As my CBG nears completion, I have a couple more questions. First, I was originally considering going with dulcimer(diatonic? I think) freting, but since I am going fretless(marking them on the fingerboard for reference rather than installing wire frets) and would like to learn to play slide, is there any reason I should go with a different fret pattern?

Also, my scale will be roughly 25"( not right here at the moment, so I can't measure it), and I was wondering how many frets to mark on it?

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Replies

  • Muddy Creek Guitars August 20, 2014 at 10:40pm
    On my fretless guitars, I don't mark every fret. I mark the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, and 12th frets with dots on the side of the neck. This is similar to what is marked on an electric guitar. I don't mark any actual frets on the face of the wood. If you do want to draw or burn on frets, be careful. If you copy a fretted guitar or use a fret calculator, it will be wrong. A string on a fretted instrument is designed to be stretched down to the frett board. The makes the strings go sharp. The exact placements of frets makes them come out in tune. If you are playing fretless, the you push down the string very little. The resulting sound will be slightly flat. I place my markers using a tuner.

    Hope this helps.
    • John Sawyer > Muddy Creek Guitars August 20, 2014 at 11:40pm

      What Muddy said... You can always go back and mark more later!  Sharpies rule...

  • Vince Cyr August 20, 2014 at 11:26am
    Thanks. What about the number of frets? Any rules of thumb there?
    • Vince Cyr > Vince Cyr August 20, 2014 at 1:33pm
      So I need at least 12, and then just keep going till I get to end of the fingerboard, right?
      • Slowpaw Steve T > Vince Cyr August 21, 2014 at 3:05am

        yep, if you want to, though you'll never if ever use any frets above 12 (-:

    • Slowpaw Steve T > Vince Cyr August 20, 2014 at 12:39pm

      a string scale of 25.5" will be the same as a Fender - measure the string scale from the nut to the bridge  and   adjust box position accordingly, the amount of frets will depend on the length of your box, small box = more frets and longer box = less frets, though as long as you have frets up to position 12 don't "fret" over it... ;-)

  • Ron "Oily" Sprague August 19, 2014 at 10:35pm
    The diatonic scale is contained within the chromatic scale. Coupla ways you could go here, as other people have done. You could put a full chromatic set of fret markings on, and that way you have the diatonic set already there. You just have to highlight the diatonics differently, probably with a different color. Or you can do the same thing, by marking the spaces between the frets in different colors.
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