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Permalink Reply by skooal on February 6, 2009 at 11:43am

http://liutaiomottola.com/formulae/fret.htm

Sorry, this is the link I was talking about...

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Permalink Reply by David Beede on March 8, 2009 at 3:12pm

Another very helpful program is wfret.

It's distinct from other programs in that in addition to giving you precise fret placement in inches or metric, it also will print out a very accurate template you can tape to your neck and transfer the position lines with a razor blade.
I suggest you either use your paper template to make a more permanent one in metal or plastic if you repeatedly make the same fingerboard, or print it out right before using, since paper shifts a bit with humidity changes.

It is particularly helpful if you build mostly "one off" instruments "by the seat of your pants" as they say, since you can measure string length from nut to bridge after you build her, input that into wfret and use the template on it. No calculations or squinting at lines on tapes or calipers.

I have heard of some slight scaling problems with certain ink jet printers. Laser printers are more spot on. In any case the frets are still precise relative to each other, so with movable bridge instruments like most cigar box beasts it shouldn't prove a problem. To test, see if your 12 fret on your template is actually half your input string length.
Here's where it's available:

ftp://mimf.com/pub/wfret.zip

You'll need an unzip program to get into it.
All the best...
David
www.davidbeede.com

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Permalink Reply by Arnar on March 11, 2009 at 1:20pm

When you measure the scale length, do you measure from bridge to nut?

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