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Permalink Reply by Fomhorach on September 1, 2016 at 9:02am

I was wrong in the neck reinforcement. After I had set my frets and strung it up I found buzzing at the nut end of the build because the neck would not bow naturally. So I had to rip out my frets and sand the neck into having a bow. It has taken me ages to get this thing together. The delicateness of string vibration over the fretboard is a nightmare. And even with all the extra work I put into this it still has the odd buzz when played too hard.

I believe that this scale of instrument pushes the luthier skill level to its maximum. I found that even after sanding a bow into the neck that my fret fall off near the heel for the bass strings had to be quite harsh.

I'm looking at solutions still after all this work. Having such long strings needs quite a bit of thought to deal with the extra string vibration circumference when plucked.

My build was a long harsh learning curve dealing with this scale length, one that I will not repeat again until I learn more about neck curvature and after build adjustments, ie. Actual after build adjustments with an adjusble truss rod

Personally I would advise people against building such an instrument for quite a few reasons. For example, the fret spacing at the nut of the guitar is very wide and unless you have long fingers it will make playability difficult. That is just one.

Looking forward to seeing your photos, right now mine is in the finishing stage. Metallic blue with black (and glow in the dark coating) insides. I've still to build my electronics but it's all coming together nicely.. But .. Wow, this one was hard to build

Permalink Reply by Fomhorach on September 4, 2016 at 12:07am

Finished eventuality.
Thank God.

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Permalink Reply by Ken Vickerson on September 4, 2016 at 5:53am

Cool paint job!  I like the work on the bridge.  I have some questions...what did you use for fret markers?  How did you end up stinging it and what tuning are you using? If I build another of these beasts I will definitely be using a threaded truss rod.  Let me know if you solve the string buzz problem. I think I'm going to let mine sit for a bit while I research some solutions. Congratulations and thanks for the photo. K

Permalink Reply by Fomhorach on September 4, 2016 at 10:09am

Fret markers are pop rivets.
I ended up stringing it with a bass string and three normal strings G1 D2 G2 D3. I raised the bridge on this so that the bass string with the long length had room to vibrate the other strings worked well enough to slant the bridge down to a normal height for the scale length.
It was a tricky build and I would not recommend doing this without an adjustable truss rod. I had to take special considerations and sand a dip in the neck. This made fret leveling very difficult as it could not be done conventionally, it had to be done in triplets. It was a **** to work on. If I ever do this size of build again I will definitely put an adjustable truss rod in it. It will save so much effort and allow for after build adjustments. This scale length definitely needs it.

It turned out OK for me, but I would not sell this thing because it hasn't got the refinement that I would like if I was paying money to buy it.

That said.. It has a deep growing to it the same as you get with a distorted bass and rising to a sound like a bass tuned CBG using the bass strings from the set. It certainly is a monster CBG.

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