Crusader

thank god for adjustable bridges!!

Hey I have to say I've been stressed all day thinking my last post or two make me sound like a tosser. I really don't know how I come across sometimes. The main thing I'm trying to say is I believe dividing by 1.0594 is not the only way of working out fret spacings. I hope I don't sound like "I know all about it"

Its quite ironic that what Stewart McDonald said about the Gibson scale is what prompted me to remark about it in the first place. I'd say they aren't intending to fully explain the Gibson scale, its just to point out the Gibson 24-3/4 fretboard is different to what you might expect. If someone makes a guitar with a 24 3/4 scale worked out by 1.0594, the Gibson fretboard isn't going to fit - and when you're selling over the internet you don't want returns

While I was trying to figure out the Gibson scale I tried all sorts of methods. When you measure to the 12th fret and double it, the only fret that really matches is the 12th fret. I also tried various other ideas but no matter what, I could not apply a mathematical formula to it

Hey talking about selling things over the internet I'm really happy. I bought a body blank of Sth American mahogany exactly one week ago and it arrived from New Jersey today. It cost me heaps but it looks good and its a full 2 inches thick

The next 'Douglas' guitar is on the drawing board!

I've seen the Stewart McDonald website (I'm really keen on buying one of those Gibson fretboards) but I don't know how they can say its "based on a true scale of about 24-9/16" because no matter what length you use, you won't match the Gibson scale - using the mathematical formula of dividing by two to the power of one twelfth. It goes close but its not exact. I'm saying this based on many hours of carefull measuring and calculations I've made.

I might also mention I am soon to buy another Les Paul and I can check and compare all my results from the SG - So wait and see if I come up with something different

What I'd like is to hear Gibson explain the theory behind the scale but maybe its been around since Orville was still alive and the people who run the company now don't really know themselves! Anyway talking about scale length is going a bit off-topic and I might start another thread on it

Thanks for your replies and the websites. I'm familiar with compensated nuts and Buzz Feiten but that last one looks very interesting (it just isn't working for me right now. It starts to open up and I can see frets with wiggles, then there's a notice saying theres a problem) But I shall try again later

Sounds like we have similar ambitions but from a different perspective!

The original idea I had when building a guitar was to have it two frets longer than normal so it tunes down to D but I never heard of baritone guitars untill recently. I didn't really like the long necks and made a couple of 24.75" guitars and liked them much more.

There's so much I could say I don't know where to start. So I'll start from the beggining

One day at High School this guy showed me this magazine with pictures of "Slade". It featured the lead guitarist's ax called "The Super Yob" (Dave Hill) It made me realise that a guitar doesn't have to be the usual "Classical" guitar shape. So during English and Social Studies I drew designs of guitars and came up with something like a Flying V. It's kinda stuid really, I knew about Gibsons and Fenders but it took this "Super Yob" to jolt me into designing something "new" (By the way I failed Social Studies and just scraped in with English)

Tuning down to D was one of the concepts I had from the beggining along with having the top of the guiar thin and the bottom thick so the fretboard tilts towards you. And access to the high frets was a major element. The straight bridge is a concept I came up with when I decided to go "Gibson-one-side-and-the-Fender-the-other" I realised you could use whatever scale you wanted on the 1st string side and decided to design it with a straight bridge. I don't think its much different to what you have done but -

One of the things I have never really heard anyone say regarding the Gibson scale. I have owned a couple of Gibsons and tried for ages to figure out how they call them 24.75" Then I put the tape on the 6th string side and whadayaknow? Almost exactly 24 3/4 inches!

So what does this mean?

You know there has to be compensation, especially on the 6th string. So Whoever designed this put the compensation into the the fret spacing not the bridge. So it doesn't follow the 1.059463094 Logarythm method no matter what you do (sorry - No matter what I do)

BTW I'm on my third Wild Turkey and there's some spunky chick on the tv and theres a huge cockroach on the wall that I had to kill. So I hope I'm sounding coherent and haven't changed the subject... What was I talking about?

Oh yeah guitars

- with extended range

That reminds me of another idea I had once - Tune the guitar like a violin

I can't remember exactly but the one I did tunes almost down to a bass guitar and reaches the highs of a normal guiatar

You can't play chords (except for 2 -3 notes) and you have to change your playing technique altogether

Its okay on a violin which has a very short fretboard but on a guitar its a bit of a stretch

...Back to the "Almost Vagrant"

(I spend all my money on stupid hobbies and am always on the edge with paying the rent)

After doing the guitar with frets on an angle that you can barely notice it begs the question "why bother"? But I'm sure if you do it right theres no need to do special fretwork, like an SG I once owned. One day I put my glasses on and looked closely at the frets and I'm sure they had been worked-on. It seemed in some areas they were filed so the high point was toward the nut and in others they were towards the bridge. I should have kept that guitar to figure out its method - it had almost perfect intonation everywhere

Well I hope I haven't been boring and but I gotta go and I'll cu another day

cheers

Thanks for your replies people

The reason I asked is -

I made a few guitars with slightly angled frets myself (about ten years ago) and I'm just getting around to checking the intonation now (talk about lazy lol) Actually I find its really hard work and wanted someone elses opinion. btw I've never seen anyone do angled frets before, do you know if many people do it?

The purpose behind my angled frets is a bit different to the "Vociferator" though. The guitars still tune the normal way but I've got the Gibson scale on the LH side and the usual logarythm method on the RH side (like Fenders and most other guitars) One or two guitars have the bridge square to the strings (like no compensation) so they have very angled frets while others have the usual compensation on the bridge so you can barely notice the angled frets

The reason I tried this is I found my Fender to have good intonation on the 1st string and my Gibson had good intonation on the 6th string. So my home made guitars are good on the 1st and 6th string but a bit wobbly on the others. Some of the problems I have ironed out with better set-up, for example a nice low action helps a lot but flat frets are nasty. So I need to improve my fretworking skills and with a few other things I might find the idea actually works. If I find time I will post up some pictures

Most of my problems are only about 2 cents, so this raises another question, what do most people reckon is acceptable? If a note is only a cent high or low would you worry about it?

I'm wondering how good the intonation is on guitars with angled frets like the "Vociferator"