clock906

Are the frets (slots) still at a 90-degree angle to the centerline?  If not, then the neck will not intonate properly.  This is the most important thing you have to get straight....no matter how it looks, if the frets aren't right, the neck will be unplayable.

If they're good, then bind it with the same wood that the fretboard is made of, it will look fine and won't look like there's binding on it at all.

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well...how do you measure exactly?

If I use a metal ruler to measure, the fret slot is basically 90' to the centerline, but then since the slot is sooo short, i guess you wouldn't be able to tell wether it is off by a few degree with naked eyes... (1 or 2 degree off is probably gonna make 0.001mm difference in such a short distance)

I don't really like the look of binding...(Plus it has a vine inlay, the binding will end up fairly close to the leaf)

If i just go ahead and use it, will I run into a lot problems?

basically, I can put the neck on a perfectly parallel neck, but the fretboard will be slightly angled (not visible to eyes, less than 1 degree?), and the TOTAL lenght of the entire fretboard will be .5-.8mm off from one side to the other. (And I will just adjust the scale length by adjusting the bridge.)

But am I missing anything? I don't want to run into other unexpected problems later down the road?

I think it really has to do with the machine they use.

I am in wood flooring business. I found that companies which made excellent floor in the past (around 10 years ago), slowly goes down in quality as their machines ages.

While "some" companies in China using brand new german machinery are producing top nouch milling and finishing at much lower price than Canadaian and American Manufacturers. (beware tho a lot of CHina made product are not destined to be used in America and has moisture level around 15%, while most part in America should be using wood with 6-9% moisture.)

Btw...i have access to a lot of different wood in planks (Oak, Maple, Jatoba, Brazilian Walnut (ipe), african walnut, ash, birch, Carberuva)

I wanted to use them to build neck but too bad all them had their bottom slotted.

(They are all 3/4" thick, 3"-4" wide and up to 6ft long)

I brought a pre-cut fretboard, pre-slotted freboard, but it is wider than what I wanted, so I need to trims both size to get it to the width I wanted...

but while doing that, I kinda over cut one size, so I had to compensate by cutting less the other size

In the end, I get a freboard with a shape that look like this (exgerated)

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Basically, it is not parallel, but only slightly (off by about 1mm? can't notice if you just visually look at it.)

And my question, is it gonna be a big problem down the road if I continue with this?

What kind of problem will I run into?

And what's a good way to fix it without scraping the freboard?

Thank for the help!

Its funny how you just seem to notice these things after years.  Fret wear is very gradual and so is the way the human ear detects notes and tones.  When I first started playing guitar I wasn't aware that half the time my guitar was out of tune.  As time passed and my hearing became more sensitive to "notes" in general, I began to be more attentive to tuning my guitar.

Anyway, did you change to lighter gauge strings?  Thats all it takes, especially if you have high frets.  As a result your normal finger pressure will stretch the lighter string more than usual causing the fretted note to sound sharp. 

If the tops of the frets are noticeably flat then you are due for a fret dressing/crowning.  I can visualize the string bending abruptly over the sharp corner of the flat fret.  With a normal rounded, "crowned" fret the string will arch along the curvature of the top of the fret.

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Thanx for the suggestion.

Yea..i changed from 9-46 to 9-42.

The guitar originally came with 9-42 strings actually.

But as far as I remember, I don't have much of this problem (at least not as much as now..) when I first got the guitar (with 9-42).

Maybe i should take some pictures of the fret and post it...so someone can tell me is the neck due for some fret work...

Guitar is an ibanez RG350DX.

I have owned the guitar for about 5 years.

Recently, i found that the fretted note are not really staying in tune even when the open strings and innotation are tuned perfectly right.

Basically...on the low E, open string is perfect E, but when I play fret one, it is not a perfect F, it is higher, it is almost half way between F and F sharp.

Playing around with it more, I found that basically the harder I press, the higher the note. With normal fretting pressure, it is about 30% higher. If I fret it REALLY hard, it is about 60% higher (the note is closer to F sharp than to F) If i fret by barely touching, it is perfect.

This problem is more appearent in fret 1-5, and less on the higher fret.

It is probably not the strings, coz I just replaced them.

Could fret wear possibly cause this problem? (There are some degree of fretwear, the top of the fretwire is starting to get flat.

Any expereinced guitar tech know the cause of this?

Well...i just hate having to reshape and refret my neck everyonce in a few years...

I know stainless steel lasts much longer than the normal fretwire...

I am sort of in the process of building/customing a guitar myself, and would like to know if I should go with stainless steel fret or just stay with the normal nickel silver.

I have heard from many people fretting/levelling is a very hard job itself on nickel silver fret already, and stainless steel is even harder.

This will be my first time fretting a guitar.

I really want to use ss and dont' mind spending an extra 5 hrs doing it.

But for those who has done it with ss, really how "hard" it is to fret with ss, especially comparing to fretting with nickel silver.

What exactly is so hard about it? Basically harder to sand and level? Or harder to put in?

That inlay is 3 mm thick. I have the same, so I gave him that advice if he needs to change the radius.

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Yea....you are totally right~~

that's what I probably gonna do..(sand it to 16" radius after putting the inlay)...

Actually, what kind of glue should I use to put in the inlay? Are most common carpetener glue gonna do the work? Or do I need some speciality glue to do it?

It's a matter of taste but not exclusively. Personally I began with classic so for me it's good a flatter radius like 16 or 17". But as I said there are also the facts. A tight radius makes chords playing and bending in the range 1st - 7th fret more easy but you cannot achieve low action without lost of sustain on upper frets. I found on my Strat, that on 17th 19th frets the guitar doesn't lose only sustain, it just doesn't play well 

The 16" is nearly flat but you can still notice the fretboard is curved, on 20" is more accentuated, is really near flat!!!

Use some high grade lemon oil to polish the fretboard. That should fix your problem. I would sand ebony up to 2000. It seems to mirror the light so  Have you tried to use air from a compressor to blow the majority of the powder? Usually it works.

Then PM a mod, you opened two times the same post 

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Thanks for the help!

I actually thought lemon oil is not for permanent finish, but more like a temporary moisturer/conditioner for the fretboard.

So...

flatter radius = lower action

tighter radius = better/easier playability on the lower fret?

(YEa...double posted...the first time I post, it says error.. )

admin plz delete~~

What materials people usually use to finish ebony fretboard?

Just those tung oil used on the back of the neck or something else?

I thought about leaving it unfinish, but it seems the fretboard has a lot of those dark wood dust, (fingers turns black after touching it for a while) no matter how much I try to clean it.

Also, is using tung oil or other fretboard finish ok on pearloid inlay?

One more other question...

does fretboard radius makes a big difference in guitar playability?

The fretboard I have is 20" radius.

I dont' really have a lot of guitar playing experience. Most of the guitars (less than 10) I played have 14-16" fretboard radius.

Is there gonna be a big difference between a 16" and a 20" radius.

I brought a precut vine inaly. It is made entirely out of those plastic pearloid. (it is all the way thru, not just the top)

It also comes with a precut/preslotted 20" radius ebony fretboard.

The inaly is not flush with the fretboard (obviously), it is sitting quite a bit higher, so I will need to sand it down. But after I sand it down, what's the best method to polish it and make it very shiny.

I tried wet sanding with 1000grit sand paper + polishing materials + car wax on a scrap piece, and I can only make it semi gloss....can't really get to the original shine it comes with.

So...is there any speical material for polishing pearloid? Or do I need finer sand paper to do it?