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Permalink Reply by James Huey on September 21, 2014 at 6:43am

I called it the fretboard in my post, but the builder in the video calls it a fingerboard. Hope the terminology is the same. This was in regards to string height adjustments.

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Permalink Reply by James Huey on September 21, 2014 at 7:54am

Thanks for the insight and info. Of the three GBGs I have in various stages of builds at the moment, it looks like two of the three can easily be raised with the fingerboard and have it higher than the box, which means they can go as either a fretless or as fretted when done. The third box, which is really the very first cigar box that I ordered, will be tricky to extend it up that high without going higher than the typical 1/4" board. It has compound curves to the edge, so that also makes it a bit more challenging. As is, it looks to me like it will work okay for a fretless fingerboard to be used on it.

Like say, I am not to the point of locking in my necks to any of these guitars at present, so making adjustments is probably done best at this time for me. The box I am most concerned about is the last one I mentioned in the above paragraph. It is a very pretty box and I don't want to ruin it in any manner, nor make the end product something that is unplayable. It will be of the neck through design, with the tail sticking out the back side about 2" or so. I have not put in any bracing to the neck inside the box at present. I don't have a table saw to cut down any wood stock at present. I am not wanting the neck to be real thick on this particular box, so I'll be haaving and shaping it once I get in a spoke shave and also do some practive with my router and a rasp on some scrap wood., first.

I have not gotten to a build where I go with fretted fingerboards at present, but plan that in the future, so your info on that is really helpful to me, already. The diagram is really helpful to me, so thanks for posting it once again. I woud think that putting the frets on before attaching it to the neck is a very good idea, for the same reason you give. I'd hate to accidentally ruin the combo and have to chuck them both.

I find the info very useful, as I hadn't given much thought to this prior to actually jumping in and doing some box cutting for the necks. It is all too easy to get ahead of yourself in your excitement of building something like this, so that is the reason I was questioning the builder's advise. I'll have to look back at some of the phots I viewed to see if your correct as to them being fretless or not. Again, thanks for the insightful info and diagram. I greatly appreciate it.

Huey

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Permalink Reply by Slowpaw Steve T on September 21, 2014 at 7:59am

I always have the fretboard height , usually 6 or 7mm, above the box level - this gives room to press the strings down without touching the pickup and gives a good break angle off the bridge   :-)

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on September 21, 2014 at 8:46am

Some neck back angle can be helpful in getting a low action for fretted necks. You only need a couple of degrees, so I doubt, given the angles of most of the pics here, if you can even discern from the photo alone whether a neck has any back angle at all. I have a couple of 4 stringers from other builders that have almost no back angle (in fact, one of them had a slight neck bow, rendering it almost unplayable above the 10th fret, but fortunately, the builder used a 4 bolt bolt-on neck, so I was able to reduce the bow, by putting in a shim to also get some back angle, and this lowered the action to where I like it, and the strings didn't fret out.). Neck back angle, plus a raised fretboard, allows for a taller bridge, resulting in better string vibration transfer to the top. But the first one I did, even though it had a slight back angle, resulted in fret outs all over the place, because I used finishing nails for frets, which I never could get perfectly level, and my fretboard was right even with the box top. That one did not have a separate fret board; the frets were attached directly to the neck. So it became a slider. ;-)

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Permalink Reply by Dan Sleep on September 21, 2014 at 1:24pm

Here is what I have to say about fretting and fretboards. Just to add to what has already been stated...

http://www.cigarboxnation.com/video/how-to-fret-a-neck

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Permalink Reply by wormil on September 23, 2014 at 8:32pm

I didn't use any neck angle in my first two and they are a whole lot less fun to play because of it. The third has about 2 degrees of angle but it's enough and makes all the difference. 

As for the fretboard, above, even, whatever you want. I put mine above because that's how most guitars are built but there are instruments that have the fretboard even with the body and sometimes frets on the body itself.

My advice and take it for what it costs, watch luthier videos (there are plenty on youtube) and learn how guitars are built then bring that back and apply what you can to CBGs.

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Permalink Reply by ReturnToSender on September 24, 2014 at 2:50am

When fretting my boards, after the frets are in place, the board tends to bow backwards slightly, which I like because when the board is then applied to the neck, it will flatten and "squeeze" the frets in their slots. And, like Wayfinder said, if you botch the board before it's on the neck, it's less annoying.

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