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Permalink Reply by Cause the Blue rat on September 10, 2016 at 11:58am

Of all the years I've played I rarely go over the 18th fret. Always thought 24 fret guitars were kinda over doing it. But if you build it people will play there too. 

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Permalink Reply by Fomhorach on September 11, 2016 at 4:04am

I sometimes put them there aesthetically wih diagonal frets and the whatnot.

I also sometimes put just intonation frets and 3/4 tones down there for the hell of it, notes that usually arnt on or are in conflict with the rest of the scale progression of the guitar. And why not add a bit of 'strange' for soloists to play around with. :)

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Permalink Reply by Shawn on September 11, 2016 at 3:17pm

25" scale 24 fret's that's how I roll. Yes I rarely use the 24th fret but when in doubt go big.

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Permalink Reply by Jonno on September 11, 2016 at 10:34pm

I do 20.With a 25 inch scale the last fret is usually near the front of box. Shorter the box the further away that last fret will be. Doin 20 seems good to me if usin 5ths tunings. Get your fifths at the 19th fret and an extra fret just to take up some empty space.I only did 15 with my first build I think.

Doing a body with cut aways makes extra frets reachable but thats a bit harder with a straight edge box. I think 20 is a happy medium

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Permalink Reply by Gilles C. Caron on September 13, 2016 at 10:32am

I have 1 guitar with 24 frets, only one... Just because my guitar hero of the time was going there. My other guitars are 21 or 22 frets.

21 on a cigar box? Why not? Some don't even have frets and it's ok

But I like to have 21 frets on a cigar box, both for the look and for no special reason..

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Permalink Reply by Fomhorach on September 13, 2016 at 10:46am

Because we can fret, it opens doors.

Here's some 'Just intonation'

Here's some art

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Permalink Reply by Taffy Evans on September 13, 2016 at 11:46am

Hi, funny but I could not tell you what number of frets my necks have without looking, but probably all over 19 frets. Scale lengths 25 to 25.5. unless I'm using a recycled neck.

For positions up the neck frets don't matter a lot, as I'm "sliding" at that stage and that's where my ears kick in.

Cheers Taff

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Permalink Reply by JL on September 14, 2016 at 1:34am

I go to 17 frets minimum, more than that is usually for aesthetics.

Why? the octave is at the 12th fret, +5 lets you play all first position fingering an octave higher.  Because sometimes it sounds better to go up.

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Permalink Reply by Jonno on September 14, 2016 at 5:26pm

Like that zig zag Formhorach.This site http://robertinventor.com/software/tunesmithy/help/microtonal_chord... has some stuff on micro stuff and this site http://jsnow.bootlegether.net/cbg/justintonation.html detailing a guy buildin a git with JI fretting.

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Permalink Reply by Fomhorach on September 14, 2016 at 10:07pm

Yeah. I don't recommend JI although with a CBG based on two root notes on the strings lends itself really well to the concepts of it (especially if you are dealing with across fretboard frets).

I did find out that with a little aforethought JI could enhance a fretboard if used very conservatively. Certain frets could be moved slightly for better intonation because we use the two note system. I've shelved this concept for now as people who don't know what it is think the guitar is built wrong. Someone will want me to build them one someday and I've learned enough to be able to build one with confidence.

The last time I did this was for someone that asked the build to be inspiring, so from fret 13+ it had JI and 3/4 tones.

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