Fretless troubles

Posted by Mike Whisenhunt on May 29, 2011 at 9:02pm

I've been building a fretless cbg and just strung it up. Problem I have is when I finger the fret lines, the string lays down on the neck muting the sound. I've seen lots of guys playing on a  fretless without problems. I was trying for a low action under the strings, but even with a height of over 1/8" it lays down.

 

Any ideas for this?

 

Mikey

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Replies

  • Mike Whisenhunt June 1, 2011 at 10:30am

    Thanks for the tip, Michael. I was already too deep into tossing some frets on it for raising the bridge to help. The only problem then was I had buzzing on the frets due to the ever so slight curve of the neck. Spent an hour with a file working over 4 frets when I decided screw it and raied the bridge. Cleaned it right up.

     

    Mikey

  • MichaelS Country Boy Guitars May 31, 2011 at 2:33pm
    Try raising the bridge some more and see if you can fret it without it laying on the neck, it only takes a little bit to be right. Fretless takes some practice to get a nice sound from it, I compensate by muting the nut when playing the open strings. that way its closer to the finger fretted strings.
  • Mike Whisenhunt May 30, 2011 at 11:15am

    Just checked the neck again, it's not as straight as I thought. Has an upward bow to it. I had strung it up and it bowed in from tension so I put a spine on the back from the bottom to about a third the way up. Now it bows the other way, though this may have been how I bought it.I have lots of time invested on this neck including fret burning, finish coat, laminating it, etc. I hate to toss it, you guys think adding some nail frets would help?

     

    Mikey

  • Mike Whisenhunt May 30, 2011 at 8:24am
    The neck is nice and straight, but not from as hard a wood as I would have liked. I made it from poplar because it's what I hand handy.It's for a friend that wanted a fretless,,,ran into some troubles and ended up having to shorten the scale length to 22 1/2". Now Im learning at this, the shorter my scale length the more tension I will have on the strings once I tune it, yes? I ask that because it seems I can never get my middle string (3 string) tuned to a G without snapping it.
  • Mike Bingham May 29, 2011 at 9:45pm

    Hey Mikey,

    I've built several fretless banjos and have found that the tone is never as bright as it would be with a fretted instrument.  As odd as it may sound, after I built up some pretty thick callouses the tone brightened up quite a bit. Try pressing the string to the fingferboard with a fingernail to see if the tone brightens up any.

    Couple of questions...

    Is the fingerboard made from a hard wood?  The harder the surface, the brighter the tone. 

    Is the neck straight? If there are high spots between your string contact point and the bridge they could choke out your strings.

    I hope this helps.

    - Mike B.

     

     

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