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neck fretting issue

I don't have a long meter stick just a yard stick in inches. I am using a micrometer to mark fret to fret and then use the micrometer almost maxed out to check about 5 frets in a row. The problem is that after I check the 12th fret at 12.5 iches and it is off only about 1/32 or the thickness of a business card. The scale is 25inches with 20 frets. I already installed the first fret and it is accurate and then marked the rest. I rest the very edge of the micrometer on the center of the mark. I am prepared to remark but would hope that this will not be a problem. I marked the 12th fret before I marked the rest just to have a measuring point. The face of the fret wire will pretty much cover what is off so it is very slightly off. Will this be a problem?

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on October 21, 2014 at 4:44pm

The bridge still has a 'zero reference' or whatever you like to call it, any compensation you need to add later is a different concern. Therefore it is equally valid to measure from either constant. If you've seen my fret calculator it's able to flip the results either way

Also, a template or jig does not limit you to a neck of only one size at all, unless you are of extremely limited spatial awareness and lateral thinking. Leo Fender used ganged saw blades with spacer washers between each blade. When he decided to add musicmasters and duo-sonics to the catalog did he have a whole new set of spacers machined? Nope, he just pulled the biggest two out. And for the p-bass? He just had a couple new bigger spacers made to extend the ganged blade arrangement he already had for telecasters. Think about it ;)

The reason your bridge needs slant is because your strings are of unequal guage. They do not sing from the edge, they sing from the centre.... Which is offset by half of the string guage. To further complicate matters most players push down hard onto the wood when fretting notes, which causes the string to stretch. The elasticity of that stretch is affected by the string guage as well.

On the subject of printed templates I can only say that I have had a software in development which does exactly this for over a year and have observed no seasonal fluctuation from the result. If it is seasonally affected then the ruler I'm checking them against (which would obviously be my alternate if I were to believe that paper can't be trusted) is being equally affected. There is definitely a large margin for error in generating printouts however, both user error and in many layers of software between the paper and the file. In my opinion your printouts ought have a ruler in their margins, so that this can be checked against a real ruler to reconcile or at least identify any print scaling errors before you take that saw and commit

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Permalink Reply by robert jones on October 21, 2014 at 11:54pm

The elephant in the room...you are using the nut as your reference point when doing the layout.

Calculation and layout are two entirely different matters in most cases.

On the subject of fret calculating you might find this interesting.

Calculating Fret Positions

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Permalink Reply by John Sawyer on October 21, 2014 at 6:04pm

All this measuring is fine, but for $6 CBGitty will sell you 4 templates from 24" to 25.5" scale length... The intonation on mine is darn close...

Then, I'm lazy that way...

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Permalink Reply by robert jones on October 22, 2014 at 2:57am

But will he sell me a 17" template for the uke I'm building?

That's a hint for Ben by the way. ;-)

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Permalink Reply by Michael Fred Johnson on October 22, 2014 at 12:51am

Here is another method...you don't have to do any sums

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Permalink Reply by robert jones on October 22, 2014 at 2:57am

Works with the 17.817 constant also.

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Permalink Reply by Mark on October 24, 2014 at 7:10am

Wow I didnt think anyone

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Permalink Reply by Bluesheart on October 22, 2014 at 4:29am

So, there ARE rules!! We can still chose to ignore them I guess.I love my paper templates and they seem to be very accurate. You do have to be very careful when printing and then putting them together(multi sheet printout), I always check that with a steel rule at least to make sure the second and sometimes 3rd sheets line up right and that the 12th fret is where it is supposed to be. I then carefully tape them together, check it again with the ruler then trim it down to a stip that I can then lay on the fretboard and mark very carefully ( I use a very sharp pencil and a 10x loupe). Very easy and cheap to make any scale length you want, you can even model the whole fretboard including string spacing at the nut and bridge without doing ANY math a( I love that part!) I save them to reuse and now have a good selection so all I have to do is grab one, hopefully the correct one (label them carefully), and mark away.