I am wanting to do a fretless guitar next. I was wondering if putting my strings at about .030" off the top of the neck would be good? I am wanting that old delta blues sound and have been told this is the way to go. I am taking my time on my second build and was fixing to get my parts in where I can really start to building. The pre-fretted boards I can buy are at 20" long. I did a layout in AutoCAD and saw that the fret board seems to go a little to far into my cigar box. I was wanting to pickup in this box. Is this normal?
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"fretless for slide"
Well, if your not pushing the string down to the fingerboard, the distance isn't really critical.
If it is REALLY high, leverage and string tension on your structure may become a concern. But in general, for strictly slide playing, you want to have it higher than a fretted build, enough so that you aren't "clacking" the thing with the slide, ad still- develop a pretty gentle low pressure slide technique that doesn't have a negative effect on intonation from pressing down on the strings.
So I would suggest that too low = difficulty playing, while higher is good, but build a robust neck allright?
(Confession, I like "lap slide" style builds. Solid as a cinderblock and sustain for a week.)
Fretless for slide or just fretless? There would be a difference.
Got it. All I build are fretless, I keep the strings high. 0.030" seems a bit low. Mine are around 4mm (0.16") at the nut and 5mm (0.20") at the end of the fretboard.
Your post is confusing. Are you talking about the distance from the strings to the fretboard?