Posted by bsidegrve on September 28, 2009 at 12:31am
I just finished building my 1st cbg with frets, I went with the 25.5 Fender scale for the build.
As of right now I have a pen as my bridge so I can easily adjust it, I set it at 25.5 so I can match the fret spacing I used and it seemed to play semi decent, since I'm still adjusting everything I went ahead and slid the bridge(pen) back closer to the tail and as soon as I did that the intonation went from being ok to being dead on! but now my scale length is closer to 27 inches!
Has this ever happened to anyone here?
Any suggestions on getting the 25.5 distance to work better?
You need to be a member of Cigar Box Nation to add comments!
Just to clarify Wes' point, the higher the action , the higher the pitch goes as you stretch the string to press it against the fingerboard. Maybe you need to lower the action? I play mainly with slide, this doesn't depress the string hardly at all so I check intonation by holding the slide on the 12th fret. This is like using the harmonic I guess. I then depress the string to the fingerboard and see what happens, making some adjustment to the bridge but continuing to favour the original slide position (I seldom, if ever, do fingerstyle at the 12th fret).
I had an intonation problem with my second build. I had the bridge set so 0 and 12 were perfectly in tune, but it sounded a little funky at the bottom and totally wacky by the 7th. I didn't think to measure the scale. Totally baffled, I took my tuner and started up fret by fret. I figured it out soon enough, I put my 12 fret marker on the 11th! Fortunately an easy fix since I used thumb tacks.
How about the string action (height from the neck/fingerboard)? what's the distance? I'm with tiny on this. You must have something really wrong. I'm out at the 12th but only a little bit for a 25" scale. And if you have to push the bridge back, Mort is right about the fret placement is now out of wack for the 27" distance.
Maybe try replacing the pen with something harder, as a steel bolt would possibly have a more accurate setting in it than a pen, simply due to the fact it has grooves for the strings to fit into. You can always raise the bridge with washers for the right playing height......
I personally really go for as good an intonation as I can get, as a well tuned guitar is just so much easier to play.
How do you know you have "dead on" intonation? Intonation is having the string sound the same pitch at the 12th fret, and when picked open, and measured on a meter with micro adjustments at the bridge. I don't think you have "dead on " intonation, especially with an ink pen as a bridge with no string slots. Moving your pen that much might make it sound cool and all, but you just made your fret scale useless.
However, Cigar Box Guitars are not made to have intonation, a word normally used around precision builds with quality hardware. CBG's are just suppose to sound cool, not "dead on". Having a pen for a bridge will not keep your strings held in intonation, as they will move on you, so chasing intonation with next to nothing for a bridge will not be very accurate, but CBG's are not suppose to be perfect, just close enough.
Measure the distance from the inside of the nut to the middle of the 12th fret. What ever measurement you get (I assume its 12.75" if its fretted correctly for a 25.5" scale) the string should contact the bridge at that distance plus a compensation value from the 12th fret. The compensation will be longer for bigger strings. I'm not 100% sure, but I think it has to do with the diameter or the circumference of the string in cross section.
The easiest way to get it perfect once its in the ball park is to use a tuner if your using a floating bridge. Tune the 1st string to a note and then hit the 12th fret. It should be exactly one octave higher if the intonation is set right. Only worry about the high string and the low string when your doing this unless you use individual saddles for your strings.
Replies
Fretted cbg 222 mp3.mp3
I finally had a chance to add a picture of the guitar to give a better idea of the distance.I personally really go for as good an intonation as I can get, as a well tuned guitar is just so much easier to play.
However, Cigar Box Guitars are not made to have intonation, a word normally used around precision builds with quality hardware. CBG's are just suppose to sound cool, not "dead on". Having a pen for a bridge will not keep your strings held in intonation, as they will move on you, so chasing intonation with next to nothing for a bridge will not be very accurate, but CBG's are not suppose to be perfect, just close enough.
The easiest way to get it perfect once its in the ball park is to use a tuner if your using a floating bridge. Tune the 1st string to a note and then hit the 12th fret. It should be exactly one octave higher if the intonation is set right. Only worry about the high string and the low string when your doing this unless you use individual saddles for your strings.
Hope this helps man.