I have a request for a guitar. He wants 24 frets. This has presented me with some questions. So far, I have been using 25" scale on the guitars I've built so far. My design places the bridge a couple of inches in from the edge of the guitar, and all the frets can easily be reached....usually 17 frets. With 24 frets, if I change nothing but making the fret board longer and going on top of the box some, it seems some of the frets won't even be reachable unless I cut a clearance into the box corner. I don't want to do that. The other option is to lengthen the neck so the fret board doesn't go onto the box....or at least minimized so the frets can be reached. Then, my bridge ends up in the middle of the box and I'm not sure that will be pleasing to the eye. Any advise out there?
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I'm a guitar guy and my first CBG build was a acoustic 25" scale and 24 frets. The bridge was 2" from the edge and the last 3 frets hover over the top on the other side. If it didn't have a piezo in it, the last 5 frets would be useless. Think about acoustic guitars. How many do you see with 24 frets? Acoustic strings just don't sound well after the 19th fret and I think it has to do with the amount of space between the higher frets. But a CBG with a piezo or magnetic pickup will be okay. Here's a pic of mine.
Matt Quinney > Angry Rooster GuitarsNovember 12, 2015 at 3:34pm
Bob,
Under my reply it says Attachments, when I look at it the pic is there, titled "Room for frets"
And I guess there is the third parameter, where you place the bridge. I'm currently building my second CBG, and for both it and the first I used a tuning fork to find where the "loud" spots are. Lots of compromising.......
Smaller box, shorter scale length. My example is both, Ashton box, which is 8.25" in the direction parallel to the neck, with a 23.5" scale. It has 20 frets and you can see that I would have had room for another 4 frets. You could probably get there by juggling these two parameters.
Thanks Chickenbone! Nice guitar! If I counter right, it has 24 frets. Im guessing your neck is maybe wider than an inch and a half? I think that helps to keep the neck from looking less like a stick when it's longer. That one looks perfect to me. Thanks for sharing the picture.
Use a smaller box..like this Oliva, or tell him he won't be able to easily fret the top of a 24 fret board on a bigger box. You're the one who has to make it, and players often don't understand the practicalities of making an instrument.
I've had plenty of impractical requests on custom builds. Don't agree to making something that you are not happy with - it's better to be straight-up about it and try and get them to understand what the issues are.
I was thinking about that too. Seems most people want the bigger boxes, but with requests like this, they don't understand what they are really asking for. If it doesn't fit, it doesn't fit. Thanks Turtlehead. Nice guitar by the way!!!
Replies
I'm a guitar guy and my first CBG build was a acoustic 25" scale and 24 frets. The bridge was 2" from the edge and the last 3 frets hover over the top on the other side. If it didn't have a piezo in it, the last 5 frets would be useless. Think about acoustic guitars. How many do you see with 24 frets? Acoustic strings just don't sound well after the 19th fret and I think it has to do with the amount of space between the higher frets. But a CBG with a piezo or magnetic pickup will be okay. Here's a pic of mine.
Bob,
Under my reply it says Attachments, when I look at it the pic is there, titled "Room for frets"
And I guess there is the third parameter, where you place the bridge. I'm currently building my second CBG, and for both it and the first I used a tuning fork to find where the "loud" spots are. Lots of compromising.......
Smaller box, shorter scale length. My example is both, Ashton box, which is 8.25" in the direction parallel to the neck, with a 23.5" scale. It has 20 frets and you can see that I would have had room for another 4 frets. You could probably get there by juggling these two parameters.
Room for frets.jpg
Use a smaller box..like this Oliva, or tell him he won't be able to easily fret the top of a 24 fret board on a bigger box. You're the one who has to make it, and players often don't understand the practicalities of making an instrument.
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