I just finished a build and the guitar is completely useless.  I'm perplexed.  This was my first fretted build.  I ordered the fretboard from someone else, and have verified that he properly spaced the frets for a 25.5 inch scale like he told me.  My nut and bridge are exactly 25.5 inches apart (i know the pic shows 26.5, but I've got the nut on the 1.  I tune it up GDG, and I get this on fret 1:  A 111(hz) E 164 (hz) A 216 (hz).  At the 12th fret I get G 201 hz (almost an A flat), E flat 306 (hz) G 402 (hz).

No Idea what is wrong.  I tried moving the nut back and forth to no avail.  So frustrating. 

Any ideas?

Ben

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by  your picture  . it  seems your  strings are too high .  thus  when you fret a note you are  stretching   the string too much and  it goes sharp  .  . lower your bridge and nut   get them strings closer to the fretboard . )  .  and im sure you will see  a great improvement  .   try  with a temporary substitute  first . 

Try putting your bridge  for the high g at 25.5, then angle the bridge slightly rearward until the low g works without moving the bridge at the high g position, if that's ok your d should be pretty close, not perfect maybe, but without shaping your saddle to suit, that's probably as good as you get assuming your action is not overly high

I didn't open the 2nd photo 1st time, as Pick said, your nut looks as though it's pretty high, a smaller bolt will help a lot to make set up easier

Two good suggestions from experienced builders, one or both should help. If the frustration level gets too great, put a slide on your ring finger and let 'er rip! High action is great for slidin'. But first, good luck on modifying your git to lower the action.

My first guess will be the threaded rod nut has shifted the string-contact point away-ward and made all the frets sharp.  Unless otherwise designed, pre-made fret boards are laid out for a standard nut where the string contact point is at the edge of the nut-slot.

Just to be sure about the scale of the fret board, I recommend that you measure from the front edge of the nut to the center of the 12th fret. If it measures 12 3/4" then the scale length for the fret board is indeed 25 1/2". If it measures exactly 12 1/2", then it is a 25" scale length fret board (more common on CBGs).

Once you are sure about the scale length of the fret board, then you can position your bridge at two times the distance from nut to 12th.

To get decent intonation when a note is fretted, you should try to get the string action down to the 1/8" range or a little less at the fist fret. That should allow you to fret notes without going sharp as well as use a slide.

Use an electronic tuner to set the open tuning then check it at the 12th fret. If it is not exactly one octave higher than the open note, then move the bridge until it intones correctly. You will like end up with the bridge set at an angle in order to get all three strings to intone correctly.

This is a problem that you can sort out in a short time if you use a methodical approach. Don't give up the ship. You will really like it when you get it right.

From your 2nd pic it seems JL has spotted your problem. The slot cut for the nut leads me to believe high point of your threaded rod is not where it should be. Check the distance between the center of the threaded rod and the top of the 1st fret.Then compare that with the distance the stew-mac free online fret scale calculator comes up with for your scale length.

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