Crusader

I found a few high frets in my Strat and Tele but it seems I file more off the top than what the gap looks like at the bottom. So I'm wondering if the height of the fret wire is consistent. What is other people's experience? Fretwire I use is Stewmac wide/tall

Found this is a previous build, doh! it would have helped stop the drill bit "grabbing" What did I do with that block of wood?....goodness knows!

On 5/31/2023 at 12:57 AM, mistermikev said:

... you need it "not too high" and "not too low"!

So true, I made my ES neck angle too low for a Tunomatic and too high for a bone saddle, had to make my own (intonation is not the best)

I did the tuning peg holes on the Strat with a drill press but that didn't turn out all that good. A bit of a cheap tool, a bit wobbly and besides it was raining bucketloads today so I wasn't going out to the shed in that. Decided to use my own ingenuity for The Telecaster and its turned out pretty good

One or two years ago I took a 25/64" drill bit and made it tapered to match the tuning pegs. Not sure if thats a good idea or overkill but I like it

Its a bit blunt now so I started off with 1/16" then a 9mm hole. I actually managed to drill straight and square from both sides with the 1/16" and they met up perfectly, and the 9mm followed. I'm sure if I tried the 9mm without the 1/16" pilot hole they would have been misaligned. The final drill bit tended to grab a bit so I had to drill with some caution but it all turned out well

Frets are in and ready to spray...

I made this fret bevel with 26 degrees to give the E strings a bit more real estate to live on. I believe they're usually 35 degrees

I rolled the fb edges with a regular sanding block at first but later used a small piece of wood. Finished sanding with 240 grit and now waiting for a suitable day for spraying

I personally never have any idea what angle my necks are on, I just go by a straight edge simulating the line of the string

Correction: It seems I go by the bottom of the fretboard, but initially go by the line of the string. Here's one of my crappy drawings...and a photo

What I actually do is take a ton of measurements from my Les Paul and just try to copy it exactly

This is a box I made to router the angle. I go by the distance and rise, so the distance to bridge is 252mm and the rise is about 8 or 9mm. Its an approach I've taken from roof carpentry

2 hours ago, mistermikev said:

right on.  not sure I set out for this...

The hard part with a Les Paul is the set neck. The tenon, getting the fretboard to sit flat on the top and so forth

Wow I'm impressed with the work you guys do, I'm just happy to get mine finished

Yes have to watch out for super glue stains!

10 hours ago, mistermikev said:

Right, no, I get it... didn't feel like you were and didn't mean to imply that!........

All good then, well its more like I felt like I was LOL And regarding what to duplicate, one of the LP's I made has a 25 inch board I bought from Perry Ormsby years ago, and the Strat and Tele I'm currently making has a few personal touches ie. 12 inch radius fretboard. Apart from that I try to make them as identical as possible

11 hours ago, mistermikev said:

well... the rule of 18 is "the rule of compound errors".  iow, the actual number is 17.817... but back in the day they rounded off because no one could cut with that sort of precision anyway... so essentially at your 12th fret you get enough rounding error to end at 24 9/16 starting from 24.75.  I was sort of alluding to that in my earlier post but perhaps did not come across direct w it.  As with many things on this build... I'll stop short of copying mistakes - nothing magical about those!

Yes, not trying to coerce you, I just had a bee in my bonnet

For the record, I was told in the 1970's that Gibson's fret spacing is different and I got around to looking into it in 1997 with my '61 Reissue. How I came to the conclusion is I measured the frets then rearranged the mathematical formula, and the number I came up with was 18.3 then after a while I realised it must be 18. And then I eventually read in a few places that Gibson use the rule of 18. But I'm not trying to prove anybody wrong when they say some of the bursts back in the 50's were 24 9/16", 24 5/8" because I can't get my hands on the particular guitars they measured

Just about got the necks finished, sanded out the burn marks and shaped the heels etc. All I need is a few days without people calling for emergency door replacements

Did some doors today for this American bloke he's about 70 yo. He's got intruders getting into a house he's renovating, thinks they're coming through the roof and out the front door. At the door shop I asked him what state he's from and I got the usual reply "I've been all over" Then he started going on about where he's been and what the crime level is like for each place. Said he used to get around with a gun in his back pocket, another in his jacket pocket one in his socks LOL all this sort of stuff. He came out with the F word quite a number of times, reckons if he catches the intruders "I'll fix the F###ers up, they don't want to mess with me"

The only reason I asked is because I have a cousin in Ohio and a niece in New York LOL

Anyway next up is the frets but I have a little issue. I've done the rounding-over first, not very extreme but still I wish I had left it till after the frets are in

That's not much to go on but it sounds like you have intonation issues. Have you tried setting the intonation by the 12th fret harmonic?

You play the harmonic at the 12th fret for each string and compare it to the fretted note then adjust the bridge saddles accordingly

I thought I would share this with you I hope you find it interesting. I've compared my 59 Reissue LP fretboard with the Stewmac slotted fingerboard for Gibson. Although they are quite different there would be no issue, you could put the Stewmac board on the LP and have no problem getting it to intonate. I've got two of these Stewmac boards so I've got no qualms about them

The Gibson frets start off being short then gradually match up then become longer, this is the Rule of 18th. And by the way where the Gibson frets fall short, it is reflected in the intonation as well but its only 3 or 4 cents and I don't notice it. In any case the Stewmac board will yield more accurate intonation. My experience is the Rule of 18th works better with thicker gauge strings (except wound strings where the core wire is thin)

Well its two years later but never mind its still worth a comment. It sounds to me like the truss rod curve is wrong

8 hours ago, mistermikev said:

some great info there.  I've read much the sm.   you see threads out there - guys arguing about 24 5/8 vs 24 9/16 vs 24.562... and ironically the kind of precision that was available back then would make it highly unlikely that you couldn't start from any of those three and end up at any other.  Even today... with cnc... getting precision to 5/1000 is only possible if you happen to have calibrated your machine that day using a brand new bit!  Further that actual difference any one of those scale lengths would make is pretty small.  I can def hear the dif between 25.5 and 24.75... but 24.75 vs 24.5625?  zero chances I could pick that out.  that said... it is a fun exercise to try to do it as close as possible to the original.

Yes it is a fun exercise and its a shame it causes arguments. I've been worried all night that you might think I'm trying to prove you wrong but I was just showing where I got my information from. I thought the video would just show as a line of blue writing

Another thing that occurs to me is whatever Gibson had on their spec sheet for the Les Pauls, they might have outsourced fretboards or employed luthiers at times to keep up with supply, and therefore results in a number of different scale lengths

4 hours ago, mistermikev said:

like anything else burst... there is a lot of dif contention on the scale length.  

"Don MacRostie and Dan Erlewine did extensive studies of Gibson fret scales on a pile of guitars from the 1920's up to current models.
From what they have found, Gibson has not actually used the 24-3/4" since the early 50's. The most common scale they found was 24-9/16" although 24-5/8" was also used."

"The actual scale length is not 24-3/4". It is 24 5/8" on at least five instruments between 1953 to 1961 that I´ve mesured during the day.
Gibson suposedly used 24-3/4" before 1953 then changed to either 24-5/8 or 24-9/16""

as I understand... 24 3/4 was based on the early advertisments... but the early lesters were actually not very precision in their scale length and apparently you can find horrifying discrepancies in the frets.  With that in mind I used 24.562 (ie 24.5625 or 24 9/16) as one of the design docs I relied on early was based on an actual 'copy' that was measured to that scale.  The "marlin era" version is 24 3/4 because it is a more standard measurement.  Also I can use that fretboard work if I ever want to do an early gold top or black beauty as I understand several were measured at that.

 

Great info, I find this topic very interesting and the more I hear about it the more I love it. The only other person I've heard talk about the Gibson scale length is David Collins in this video. You can watch the video or here's the bits about Gibson - (I like the first bit LOL)

(2:54) Gibson’s fret spacing system in the first half of the 20th century is so bizarre that thus far it has completely evaded any kind of explanation that I know of

(3:40) Gibson hired some folks at the University of Chicago to help them with this in the late 1940’s

(3:56) what Gibson apparently got back from their friends at the University happened to be the 16th Century Rule of 18, literal 18 divisor

(4:12) With 12th root of two spacing using a 17.817 divisor when you get to the 12th fret you will be exactly half way up your scale. Start with a 24 and 3/4 and your 12th will fall at 12 and 3/8th

(4:27) When you use the old 18 divisor however your 12th fret now falls a bit short, landing instead at 12.285 inches from the nut instead of 12.375

(5:00) So Gibson does actually space their boards to a 24 and 3/4 inch base scale length. But since they’ve continued to use this Rule of 18 up through to this very day, their real scale length, or relative scale, ends up nearly 3/16th of an inch shorter

Evaluating historical scale lengths can get even trickier because there was a lot of tooling error that changed over the years. They kept using the same base scale for intended layout but if saw blades got worn, or were changed, this introduced a lot of variation. You can actually find scales measuring from just over 24 and a 1/2 inches up to near a full 24 and 3/4. Most fall around 24 9/16th to 24 5/8th though

(5:53) Gibson’s Bozeman factory builds their accoustics with modern fret spacing, 12th root of 2. But they actually set their scale length to 24 5/8th which keeps their final layout quite similar to historical specs

Just wondering if you are keen to make it rigid-dig 59 Les Paul, are you concerned about the scale length? I will never have a real 59 LP in my hands but my 59 Reissue, 61 Reissue and ES-137 all used 24 3/4" by the Rule of 18th. Therefore the nut to 12th fret measures 12 9/32" which is probably why people think its 24 9/16"

Wow, talk about making things hard for yourself!

A little more done today on the Telecaster neck profile. On previous guitars I was keen to get the profile same as the 59 Reissue Les Paul but with these I am happy just to get them done. Turns out to be same as 59 Reissue at nut end (no surprises) but at the 12th fret its the same as the Les Paul Axcess. Very happy with that result

On 5/5/2023 at 10:01 PM, mistermikev said:

right on.  pretty spendy but ash like that is hard to find!

Yeah I feel like I have an obligation to do a good job, but it also shows my confidence that I can!

Here is the little progress I did today. I routered the heel end of the neck with the 1 inch bit. The task now is to rasp/sand/scrape the neck and keep the shape at heel and nut ends intact. I don't know why its still flat in the centre LOL

21 hours ago, mistermikev said:

that is a lovely piece of swamp ash.  where did you get that wood (if you don't mind me asking).  

also, some jedi level jig saw skills above - nice work.

That would be .... Stewmac! and at $197.99 USD it doesn't sound much but with shipping, taxes and exchange rate it translated to $505.10 AUD

So I'm glad to hear people say its a nice looking piece or wood!

I was wondering if the Allen key is stripped but if it tightens up then it indicates that it is not. Try just loosening and leave it, or tighten the strings, or as Bizman suggested instal heavier gauge strings

Finally some progress on my Fender replicas, I got the skunk-stripes in. Fender use Walnut apparently but I've used Mahogany, so there's another tell-tale that these are not real Fenders. There's a lot more to the process but these photos tell a story

31 minutes ago, henrim said:

Very interesting! I have an unfinished project from the 1990's with a chunk of maple like that, this is inspiring me to do something with it