Replies

  • I would go for 3/16 or so at the last fret. I set mine to the height of a penny at the first fret, that is how I cut my notch in the nut.
  • didn't think about string height.....

    and that's the culprit....  If I play the 12th with a slide it's perfect, when I press the string down it jumps up to G#.

    Seems as though my action at the 16th fret (the last one) is about 1/3" and about 3/16" at the 1st fret.

    I'm using GDG tuning with electric 32W, 24W, 16 strings. Any idea as to what height would be good to shoot for before I try modifying the bridge?

  • Brian, how high are your strings? If you have them set too high, then when you press down on them, the string will have a tendency to go sharp on you. Also double check your bridge, you may have to angle it a bit to get the intonation correct.
  • I used this method, finished up the guitar and somehow ended up with the 12th fret NOT being the octave......

     

    I have 24.5" from nut to bridge, 12th fret is spot on 12.25", the 3rd string is tuned to low G and the 1st is tuned to high G.  When I play the 12th fret of the 3rd string it is not the same as the open 1st string....  The 11th of the 3rd string seems closer....

     

    I'm completely confused by this.

  • Randy Webb said:
    @Jason

    Even if the printouts scale fractionally during printing, the frets relative distance wouldnt change. It would just go from 24.5 inch scale to a 24.48675 scale or whatever. It shouldnt be a problem as long as you mount the bridge after the neck.

    Good point. I hadn't thought of it that way. My first build (following the first CBG article in Make magazine) I made a LOT of mistakes in figuring out the frets. So the second time around I was putting a lot more time and thought into it and was probably overly focused on getting it "just right" to the point where something like that didn't even occur to me.

    Really looking forward to my next few builds. A couple of friends kids have requested guitars for Christmas so I've got to get back on track and complete a few boxes soon! Just been having too much time playing since it's been too hot to work in my "shop".
  • @Jason

    Even if the printouts scale fractionally during printing, the frets relative distance wouldnt change. It would just go from 24.5 inch scale to a 24.48675 scale or whatever. It shouldnt be a problem as long as you mount the bridge after the neck.

    The bridge is the last thing I put on mine generally, and I havent had a problem yet with intonation. and I am PICKY when it comes to a properly intonated string!
  • Well,I'm the opposite. I felt I did better with a template and a very sharp pencil. I only went down to .5mm increments when I measured with a ruler, but always felt like I was off a bit. And since I generally build really sort, those tiny errors were a problem.



    Jason Hitesman said:
    Diane in Chicago said:
    Really? Mine from Fretfind were spot on. But I do doublecheck at the octave/12th fret, to be sure I didn't enter the wrong data or whatnot.

    Yeah, I tried a couple of different printers and a number of different settings in my print dialogs...but never got a printout to come out that measured as accurately as I wanted. It was close and probably "good enough" but I was trying to see how accurate I could get and how good I could get the intonation on my last build and I could be considerably more accurate with a ruler than the printouts came out.
  • Thanks!



    Jason Hitesman said:
    Diane in Chicago said:
    Really? Mine from Fretfind were spot on. But I do doublecheck at the octave/12th fret, to be sure I didn't enter the wrong data or whatnot.

    Yeah, I tried a couple of different printers and a number of different settings in my print dialogs...but never got a printout to come out that measured as accurately as I wanted. It was close and probably "good enough" but I was trying to see how accurate I could get and how good I could get the intonation on my last build and I could be considerably more accurate with a ruler than the printouts came out.
  • Diane in Chicago said:
    Really? Mine from Fretfind were spot on. But I do doublecheck at the octave/12th fret, to be sure I didn't enter the wrong data or whatnot.

    Yeah, I tried a couple of different printers and a number of different settings in my print dialogs...but never got a printout to come out that measured as accurately as I wanted. It was close and probably "good enough" but I was trying to see how accurate I could get and how good I could get the intonation on my last build and I could be considerably more accurate with a ruler than the printouts came out.
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