Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jason W. on April 28, 2011 at 7:57am

I'm no expert and there may be other reasons for it, but your shorter scale lengths will be slightly higher in pitch, have smaller spaces between the frets and have a shorter overall neck to traverse. The differences aren't huge, but people prefer some over others. I'm sure it plays into string tension as well, I'm just not really sure how (string tension has less leverage on a shorter neck than a longer one?).

Paul Nelson said:

I've always wondered what the reason is for the varying actual scale length. Does it have to do with the action or string thickness?

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Permalink Reply by Don Thompson on April 28, 2011 at 2:27pm

Pitch is the same no matter what the open string length is. Concert pitch A=440 hz no matter what the scale length is. The difference in guitar is the "feel" of the finger on the string, how much effort is required to fret the string. A shorter scale will reach a pitch sooner than a longer scale there fore the string will "feel" slacker though the pitch is the same as a longer length scale. Jason yes, string tension will be different though the pitch is the same.

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Permalink Reply by Jason W. on April 29, 2011 at 9:02am

Maybe pitch was the wrong word. I was thinking a guitar scale length vs a ukelele scale length. One has a much higher tone(?) than the other.

Don Thompson said:

Pitch is the same no matter what the open string length is. Concert pitch A=440 hz no matter what the scale length is. The difference in guitar is the "feel" of the finger on the string, how much effort is required to fret the string. A shorter scale will reach a pitch sooner than a longer scale there fore the string will "feel" slacker though the pitch is the same as a longer length scale. Jason yes, string tension will be different though the pitch is the same.

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Permalink Reply by Mungo Park on April 29, 2011 at 9:10am

Also something to consider is that you will need different strings if the scale is to different from what the strings were intended for. I learned this the hard way, if the scale gets shorter the strings have to be tighter.  Cheers Ron.

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on April 29, 2011 at 1:14pm

you can use regular guitar strings at any shorter scale dude, you just gotta be mindful that they are going to reach a higher pitch than they were packaged for..    If you have a regular guitar at home you can hold your build up against it so the bridges pretty much line up and look how the nut distances compare.   If your nut on your project lines up just about with the fourth fret on the guitar for example you can know that an E string will be happy around g#, right?   Thing is, as the scale length decreases, so does the range of pitches you can tune a given string to.   At 25" guitar scale for example a low E string might happily go down to D1 or C#1 before its flabby and toneless..   It might go up as far as perhaps G or G# before it breaks or is under too much tension, impossible to bend, adding too much torsion onto the neck etc etc..   this range is pretty decent, lets say something between a diminished fifth and an augmented fifth..   (6 frets and 8 frets) ..  well as the scale gets shorter so will this range, so you gotta be more selective with your strings at a shorter scale if that makes sense..   This is why you can get guitar strings in several sizes, light, x light, heavy etc etc, but with something as short as a mando there might only be one size or at the most two,and sod all difference between em.

 

 

And this is all I think you mean too Jason, on a shoter neck the same string will comfortably tune to a higher pitch, its obvious and stands to reason, if someone puts up a pic of a shorty 14" scale cbg on here, how do you assume it sounds in your mind?  You assume its tuned to a higher register of course..

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Permalink Reply by JonBouye on May 6, 2011 at 12:03pm

Hi Bill, I wouldn't fret (pun intended) too much about your markup not aligning with your Les Paul for the reasons given in the previous posts. Perhaps I overlooked it but the one thing I didn't see mentioned I found on an earlier thread; "Measuring Frets the Easy Way - WFret to the Rescue!" It was posted back in Jan. '09 and contained this little program I have found to be very useful.
wfret.zip  You can even print out your results to tape on to your neck. I hope this helps.

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Permalink Reply by Bill Harbour on May 6, 2011 at 3:51pm

Downloaded wfret...thanks JonBoye!!!!

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Permalink Reply by Pineee Johnny on May 10, 2011 at 2:05am

I did this for a long time,.and it was just a pain in the neck to get the frets square and in the perfect spot on the neck,.yes it did work but sometimes there were intonation problems because the frets weren't in the "perfect" spot. So,.I decided to just buy the Dual scale metal fret templates from Stewmac and also the Japanese Fret Saw system. Together they are about $150 and believe me,.it saves alot of time and is very accurate and cuts the fret slots perfect every time. It's the best way to go IMO with no guess work. Set the saw miter box insert your neck or fret board cut all the slots in a few minutes and it's comes out perfect and professional looking with no issues.

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Permalink Reply by Jailhouse Fingers Bailey on October 27, 2011 at 12:43pm

The actual scale length of a Les Paul is 24-9/16 COMPENSATED to 24-3/4. The compensation is that little tilt of the bridge. If you want a Les Paul scale, scale it to 24-9/16. Measure it on your Les Paul and you'll see.

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Permalink Reply by Mark Bliss on October 27, 2011 at 6:25pm

As noted in my original response there are multiple scale lengths used by Gibson over the years, all "generically" called 24 3/4". It could actually be 24 5/8", 24 9/19" etc. depending on vintage. Also, there are some minor manufacturing tolerance variations guitar to guitar to consider when comparing finger boards. 

The "compensated" length will vary string to string, and even from guitar to guitar depending on setup. Variations in string guage, action height etc will cause slight variations and therefore the compensation is "fine tuned" for each guitar. An average can be calculated for a starting point, but will always require tweaking to get it right. One string may be 24 3/4". Or the average might be. (I have personally never bothered or felt the need to check.)

But fret layout will still be based on the first octave length X2 which in this case will not be 24 3/4"

Measure from the edge of the nut to the center of the 12th fret and multiply by 2 for accurate duplication of the fret layout of an existing scale length.

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Permalink Reply by Hank Bruner on October 27, 2011 at 6:32pm

Right here  on cigarboxnation is a guy named "Crow". Go to his page and check out his videos on how to build a cbg in an hour. He has a formula on his fretting video that works every time. You need a calculator and a metric tape, but it is a simple procedure once you see how he does it. Its fast, and very accurate no matter how long your neck is. It will give you the right spaceing for each fret line.

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Permalink Reply by Mark Bliss on October 27, 2011 at 6:50pm

The original question was "why is my layout different than my Les Paul" not a question of how to measure and layout his finger board. Bill's measurement method wasnt at fault, just his assumption that his Les Paul was really 24 3/4" was misleading, and I attempted to explain why.

Crows method is fine, and exactly the math that was used long before calculators and computers. Just one thing, be careful to always measure from the same starting point (base) to prevent the potential stack up of errors likely to occur if you measure fret to fret as I have seen some people do.

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