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chinese fret boards and scales


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Hello,

I bought two pre slotted maple fret boards from a chinese site, I think it was banggood? I did not check them when I got them as I assumed they were good. Now, some months later I have taken the wrap off and noticed that they are either radiused slightly, on the wrong side or, they are not radiused (which would make sense) and the other side has a bow! I have tried to remove the bow and had no luck as my plane is struggling to cut maple and I dont want the hassle of mucking about with planing the wood. I have checked a fret slotting template against the scale of the fret board and they are not lined up properly. I have one complete neck I bought from ebay (banana headstock style) that fretboard matches the two dodgy ones exactly for fret spacing. neither match the 25.5 inch scale of the template. I have measured from the nut to the 12th fret and all three say 324mm

I am not sure what is going on?
I dont want to mention the name of the template maker, and english man that I believe I can trust more than the chinese necks. but the necks are consistant with their measurements. not sure what is going on here.

What could I do about the bow in the fretboard? 

everystep in this is a nightmare, started a year ago and still not completed a single guitar!

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Hmm... 2x324 mm should be 25.5" but if it doesn't match with the template...

Can you check the fretboards against a guitar? The Chinese don't always understand the difference between 24,75 and 25.5", they often tend to copy the descriptions from another product. Another thing that popped into my mind is how the nut has been marked: Are you measuring from the end or does the first slot actually mark the nut location to suit various thicknesses of nuts? If the frets are unmarked that might be the issue. A photo might help!

If you can straighten the bow against the neck with the fingers of one hand gluing and clamping should take care of the issue.

You say that they were wrapped for months which may have caused the warping because of humidity not having been able to stabilize. Put a few pencils or other slats on a flat tabletop, lay the fretboards on them, line another set of slats on the fretboards and lay a heavy board on top. Let them acclimatize for a couple of weeks, ensuring good airflow on both sides, and see if the problem goes away. If not, you can try laying a damp towel on the cupped side for a while to see if it helps.

 

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16 hours ago, simon1138 said:

that fretboard matches the two dodgy ones exactly for fret spacing. neither match the 25.5 inch scale of the template.

Then assume that the template is incorrect, not the other way around. If the three items that you have are supposedly set out to 25.5" scale and match each other, and the 25.5" scale template doesn't match any of the three, then disregard what the template says.

If you've bought pre-slotted fretboards and a neck you almost have no need for a fret template anyway.

 

16 hours ago, simon1138 said:

I have measured from the nut to the 12th fret and all three say 324mm

Then you have a fretboard that is 25.5" scale.

Nut to 12th = half the nominal scale length. You measured 324mm.  Double it to get the nut-to-bridge distance: 2 x 324mm =  648mm. Convert to inches: 648mm / 25.4 = 25.5".

 

16 hours ago, simon1138 said:

they are either radiused slightly, on the wrong side or, they are not radiused (which would make sense) and the other side has a bow

Unlikely that they were both manufactured with the slots cut on the wrong side of the radiused face (were they advertised as pre-radiused as well?). It'd also be unusual for only one side to be bowed outwards (bulged?) while the opposite face remained flat. More likely that the fretboards have cupped along the face where the slots have been cut and you've actually got a corresponding bow along the back (unslotted face). If you lay a straightedge across the face of the board where the slots have been cut there's a good chance you'll see daylight under the middle of the straightedge.

 

16 hours ago, simon1138 said:

I have tried to remove the bow and had no luck as my plane is struggling to cut maple and I dont want the hassle of mucking about with planing the wood.

As @Bizman62 has suggested, unless the cupping is so minor that you can squeeze it flat with only hand pressure, your only real course of action is to reflatten it. That may involve planing. Sanding is another option, using paper attached to some kind of flat surface. The back needs to be relatively flat so that it will mate to the neck and for the glue to hold it successfully. If it's too warped the action of attempting to force the edges to bend flat against the neck is either going to result in the glue joint failing as it tries to pull itself apart, or the neck being liable to twist and warp.

Note that if you do decide to flatten it by planing/sanding, doing so will reduce the effective thickness of the board; if you take off the highest spot on the bowed surface the usable thickness of the board reduces by the amount you just took off. If you then try and take off the high spots on the opposite face to make both sides coplanar you're reducing the thickness again. Maybe not an issue if you're starting with an overly-thick fretboard, but if your fretboard is only 6mm thick to begin with and you were hoping to use a 6mm thick fretboard on your build, it's not going to work.

@Bizman62's other suggestion for trying to coax the board back to a flat shape takes a significant amount of time. Or may not do anything. Or may result in the board re-cupping once removed from the acclimatising environment. You'd have to weigh up for yourself whether you can afford to wait for the outcome of that process. I've seen it done on expensive, one-off, fancy cuts of timber where the chances of it working out were weighed up against the size, cost and aesthetic value of the wood. A couple of maple fretboards, maybe not so much.

If the acclimatising process takes weeks (or there's a chance it may not work), and you're not keen on planing/sanding the existing boards flat again (or they're not thick enough to do it successfully), and a replacement pre-slotted fretboard can be purchased cheaply and takes about the same amount of time to get to you, I know which way I'd be leaning.

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9 minutes ago, curtisa said:

If the acclimatising process takes weeks (or there's a chance it may not work), and you're not keen on planing/sanding the existing boards flat again (or they're not thick enough to do it successfully), and a replacement pre-slotted fretboard can be purchased cheaply and takes about the same amount of time to get to you, I know which way I'd be leaning.

@curtisa went more into depth in explaining the scale length math. Regarding the scale template possibly being incorrect, there's a couple of explanations:

  1. As you bought it from a reputable british vendor, it can still be stamped wrong, saying 25.5 when it actually is 24.75. Mistakes happen...
  2. It is 25.5 and the first notch is for cutting the nut slot instead of the first fret. I've let a luthier cut some fretboards for me with his special tools and the first slot on the boards is for the nut, located an inch from the end of the board for crack safety and versatility.
  3. Just a side note: I bought a double sided notched straight edge from Banggood. It's for 24.75 and 25.5 but I couldn't make it match with any of my guitars. At some point I realized that it starts from the second fret!

It's a long way from China so there's lots of time for moisture to condensate and seep through any wrapping. Fretboards aren't too expensive in Europe either, Madinter and Maderas Barber in Spain will deliver faster than any Chinese shops. That said, it's good practice to let any wood acclimatise in a well ventilated place before using. Even more so if it has been wrapped into plastic for a long transport.

Finally, if you order a hand made guitar from a luthier it can easily take at least a year, easily two or three years until you get the finalized product. There's so many stages where the project just sits due to settling or drying - starting from choosing the woods and letting them acclimatise to the workshop environment to see if they start to warp. That alone can take months!

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