Ok so the blood has been spilt. My fingers have been glued together. I have explained to all the countermen at my local music store why I only need to purchase three strings and for the lack of a better moniker my Frankentar has been born!! (of is it Cigarenstein?) I have one last thing I need before I can plug this monster into the amp and begin harassing my wifes cat (Captain Mousebreath) with my sliding, melodic blues stylings!!! My fretboard is rather bald, with no marks and no frets. I am to understand that the slide players prefer this (no frets I mean) but I at least need to draw the frets on so I have a point of reference. I've seen the fret scales at Stewart Mcdonald but I am wodering if it is different for a three stringer and how many frets do I need. Is scale length from the bridge to the 'saddle' (bolt on the box)? This is my first try at this and I just want to get some bluesy raunch out of it while still being able to play Three Blind Mice for my nieces. Thanks in advance and Keep on Truckin'!- Fat Toe Fozzie

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Wow, cool name, cool cat....you have it all.
Everything excepts frets on my CBG!-FTF

Richard Sanabia said:
Wow, cool name, cool cat....you have it all.
Yup, scale length is the distance from the nut to the bridge. My first is a fretless too and I used the fret calculator at Stewart-MacDonald. I'd recommend using millimeters as your measurement scale rather than inches as it's easier to figure out where 128.9 mm is on a ruler than where 5.054 inches is. I used a soldering iron to burn the fret lines in on mine...you can see them on my page if you want to take a look. And yeah....cool name :)
Looks like my soldering iron will come back out of the shop!! That looks real good KaptnKen. So if my bridge to nut measurement is 26" and 22 frets is standard I just plug them into the calculator and ta-da! I've got this thing right where I want her so I don't wanna screw up now! -FTF

KaptnKen said:
Yup, scale length is the distance from the nut to the bridge. My first is a fretless too and I used the fret calculator at Stewart-MacDonald. I'd recommend using millimeters as your measurement scale rather than inches as it's easier to figure out where 128.9 mm is on a ruler than where 5.054 inches is. I used a soldering iron to burn the fret lines in on mine...you can see them on my page if you want to take a look. And yeah....cool name :)
Well I tried to tuner her up and everything went to heck real quick. The tuners bent and snapped the strings came back and wacked me in the face and I yelled a word that I had forgotten years ago!! Guess I'll be buying one because I don't have the time to build another!! For a half a second I thought I had built something that actually sounded nice!! Oh well, anybody have one to sell?........ Oh the word I yelled was rhutabaga!!
Don't give up yet, sounds like you just cranked the tuners a bit too far, could you just replace the bent tuners and try again? I just finished my first and I broke 1 string in the process, but my tuner survived so its ok. Playing your own creation is half the fun, not sure what the other half is.
Yeah, don't stop now! Get them tuners in shape, re-string it and play! Besides, it sounds like you have the inspiration for a song there..."Rhutabaga Blues" :)
I don't know guys. I think the reason they bent is because I made the holes too big. I am afraid I would have to scrap everything except the piezo and the input jack!!! I don't know if I want to start from scratch on a second one....... although if I made the neck with a slant the pressure on the tuners would be less...........hmm.........-FTF

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