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Permalink Reply by Jim Saraceno on November 27, 2015 at 2:14pm

First you should probably watch these two videos... Intonation... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPTQmyNbwpY and string height... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZ3F7-aXMiw

Start by making sure the bridge is twice the distance from the nut as the 12th fret. Next, play the note on the first fret. If it is sharp, the string action is probably too high and you are actually stretching the string to get it down to the fret which will make your note sharp.

Your problem is going to be one or more of the following... String action is too high, bridge is in the wrong place, or the frets are in the wrong place. The first two are easy to fix, the third is not, however if you bought a pre-made fretboard, that won't be your problem (though I'm not sure what you mean by "I used pretaped spot on neck For the nut."

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Permalink Reply by Douglas Botkin on November 27, 2015 at 2:37pm

Fretted neck from cbgitty has a strip of tape indicating the nut location. Bone nut material could be filled lower as well as bridges brass rod.I will try that first, thanks

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Permalink Reply by Anthony Waszkiewicz on November 27, 2015 at 7:17pm

How much string "surface contact" do you have on the bridge and the nut.? 

Friend of mine (we will call him Les) most recent build  was hard to tune and sounded like a flat dull (not cimer) bullfrog. The bridge was about 10cm wide - "too much string on surface on the bridge". Secondly the nut is too wide...a bolt 20mm diameter, again too much string contact on the nut...Les has'nt reduced this, but it improved a lot just from reducing the bridge width down to 3mm. Also his string angle from the nut to the tuners is very low, increasing this angle will improve tuning and overall sound.

If Les reduced the nut to about 3-4mm..and increased the string angle as described aaaabove, it would surely improve beyond his expectation...Cheers Jim hope this helps.

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