Different Resonant Metals

[Kenny]

alright, i havent posted my designs here yet, but im doing a concept guitar with a fretless metal fretboard; however i'm a little stuck on which metal to use. right now im leaning towards a stainless steel fretboard, but i want everyones opinion; being as i have nearly no knowledge in the area of resonant metals

Kenny

[avengers63]

The best flutes are made from gold. Second to those are silver. Based on that, those would be the most musically resonant metals.

Coming back to an economically feasable solution... I've seen aluminum used for bodies here & there. IIRC, the dude from INXS used one, I think by Tokai. They were completely hollow. How that would translate to a fretboard, who can say.

So... were it a bass, I could understand why you might want to go fretless. But on a guitar? Care to elaborate?

Edited December 16, 2008 by avengers63

[psw]

You might want to check out the good people over at www.unfretted.com and there have been the occasional thread around here.

Numerous materials have been used, stainless steel sounds like a reasonable choice, glass like Ned Everett uses is also popular. There are also various way that people like these instruments set up that you may also like to consider. Generally the string gauge tends to be substantially thicker.

They have a forum very similar to PG as well as a lot of articles on various unfretted and related instruments.

I came in contact with them through the sustainer project...some have used the sustainer technology to counteract the pizzicato effect on things like wooden boards like a violin uses a bow...glass and metal boards often sound a lot like a slide guitar.

I have often considered the possibility of experimenting with a half fretted guitar...the higher frets removed but low frets to allow more accurate chord work...but the purists might not like that concept...I have seen it done on a bass though to good effect...

pete

[RAI6]

http://www.vigierguitars.com/page/fiche_pr...php?id_prod=256

What ever "Delta Metal" is........

[erikbojerik]

Neck dive. And you'd need carbide or diamond tools to work the stainless (depending on what kind you use - there are many).

How does one decide whether one metal is more "resonant" than another? Just because it's been used to make some other kind of unrelated instrument before?

Almost surely the gold and silver flutes Avenger speaks of were plated - if they were pure, they would be too soft to stand up to any kind of regular use. Silver especially.

Not trying to be contrary here, just wondering what it is you want to achieve with a metal fingerboard.

[psw]

I kind of figured the "resonant metal" tag was misleading...I don't think you want a resonant fretboard!

The main thing is that the fretboard resists wear...stainless is ok, but hard to work...and you have the problem of sticking it on. A metal board will have a very different expansion to the neck...the possibility of board/neck join failing needs to be considered. People have used glass..adn by that I mean real glass, often mirrored.

It is a similar thing to slide, however you still have your fingers on the strings and the pads of the fingers always have a bit of a muting effect on guitar (bass strings are so thick that the muting is not too bad). This is in part the interest in using a sustainer...but then there are others who consider the fretless guitar more like an oud or something and that kind of sound is what they are wanting.

Who knows what "delta metal" is...I suspect things like aluminium would wear pretty quick.

[j. pierce]

The best flutes are made from gold. Second to those are silver. Based on that, those would be the most musically resonant metals.

Huh, didn't know that - I thought they were gold and silver plated, but it's been a long time since I've played a wind instrument.

I think the metals used there are used for different purposes than what are important for fretboards; they're certainly different thicknesses and shapes - you want something for a wind instrument that is conducive to vibrating a column of air to produce sound. How that works exactly, is beyond me, but I look at it the same way we look at guitar woods - a guitar wood that's great sounding for an acoustic top, helping to vibrate the box air in a way that produced a pleasing sound, probably hasn't got the same properties we want in fretboard, where we want something sturdier and stiffer.

I've limited experience working in either silver or gold, but from my experiences, they're both fairly soft metals that I wouldn't think would wear well against guitar strings.

EDIT: reading other topics at the same time - other's beat me to basically the same thing.

[joshvegas]

Avengers is actually right. the best flutes are sterling silver, or sometimes platinum. I have never heard a solid gold flute (they do exist they apparently have quite a warm tone) but I've played a few gold plated silver ones.

Your typical everyday flute would be nickel silver.

http://iwk.mdw.ac.at/Forschung/english/lin...linortner_e.htm

Silver is a wee bit harder than gold by the way.

Why is everyone forgetting that steel is incredibly resonant? Tuning forks anyone? My bike frame has a lovely ringing tone!

Edited December 17, 2008 by joshvegas

[Kenny]

i really should have specified what i was doing more

i was originally going to build a fretless guitar with a glass neck, however i couldn't find anyone willing to cut and round the glass for me (its to "small" a project i guess)

the reason i didn't want to use wood for the fretboard was in my experience(especially the half fretless guitar i made...bad idea) it seemed to have a very dampened tone(fwiw it was an ebony fretboard) .

i would say 1 metal is more resonant than another metal just the same way i would judge woods. some woods are just better than others at transmitting vibrations (same reason people use spruce instead of purple heart as acoustic guitar tops in my mind) so id imagine that the same could be applied to metals

i'm assuming that the different crystalline structures of different metals would lend itself to the metal being able to transfer vibrations better than others.

my knowledge of metallurgy is very limited but i did look to instruments like the hang and steel drums., which are just pieces of steel that are vibrating... so its related in principle(sort of)

id imagine that softer metals like aluminum nickel or copper would have a much looser crystalline structure than that of steel titanium or even iron. However, im just making this inference from guitar frets. Stainless steel frets are very "bright" sounding, as apposed to the "nickel-silver" (an alloy containing aluminum copper and 15% nickel) frets which absorb more of the vibrations of the string

i dont know where im rambling on to, i love the sound that the vigers surfretter produces, they should tell me what thier "delta metal" is

Edited December 17, 2008 by Kenny

[soapbarstrat]

A complete glass neck or just a glass fret-board ? 'cause cutting 3/16" or 1/4" glass for a glass fret-board is not that big of a deal.

If you like the sound of frets, maybe just make the fret-board chuck full of frets (one right next to each other, from one end to the other)

[Kenny]

hahah...thats funny :-p

i was talking about just a glass board...thats no problem, now that i know glass can be sanded, but ideally i would want titanium, in the next few weeks im going to be going around various mills to see if that have some scrap sheet titanium i could snag, or buy i dont want to spend 120 for a sheet thats 3x larger than i need...

[psw]

I think resonant is completely barking up the wrong tree...the board isn't vibrating at all...it really is about hardness and wear...the thing is...your fingers (unless you where thimbles on them) will be deadening the notes as a matter of course.

But maybe I am missing something completely...but I have given it some thought over the years and the concept of resonance has never come up. Sure...if you play slide with an ebony slide it will have a different tone to a glass or metal slide...I think that is more of an analogy.

I think it is a reasonable proposition to make a thin SS board and have it work well and be capable of DIY manufacture...maybe 1-2mm thick and bent and secured over a radiused board...obviously cutting it would be difficult, but not impossible I would think. Even some kind of chrome plated steel should work well I'd expect...maybe consult a sheet metal work shop and then have the thing plated...