Official Luthiers Forum!

What's wrong with fractions....

"This is not rocket science; it's harder"

Alan Carruth


I get this now!

Lutherie is like a moon landing but where you only get 64ths on your slide rule!

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

What's a slide rule? Does it have anything to do with geopolitics?

Here I am, Skype me!

That's a play on the classic, "Here I am, send me."



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hey James. We considered Skype or on-line meeting technology but we both believe that fretting and set-up training greatly benefits from in-person, hands-on. When I'm in the same shop with someone it's easy to for example say "use your fingernail as I just did to feel that..." speaking of reducing nut height to near final height. Can't do that stuff remotely.

We loosely follow two important rules at Ann Arbor Guitars for our classes and for our repair work.

1) Do one thing very well instead of a bunch of things s****y....

2) Be number one or number two (in your region) in all that you do or go home and do something else. Attribution: Jack Welch, World's most famous CEO aka neutron Jack aka my former boss. PS: GE's value rose 4,000% during Jack's time at the helm. Hard to argue with that from a numbers perspective but I digress.

Some time soon we are going to be posting our 2017 class schedule on our web site.

Skype is a pretty good tool for conveying ideas and catching up but some of the things that we want pointed out to our students are WAY too small to be seen remotely via the Internet. A lot of this stuff builds on itself and if we can't see exactly where each student is we might miss something important down the road.

For me personally there was no way that my Lutherie game was going to progress until I got out of the vacuum breathing my own air at some point and did some in person work and studying. It's also great way to learn where the bar is... Lots of us even when we think that we will never go pro and start selling our stuff end up doing exactly that anyway. Great set-ups and fret work are intolerant of posers and demanding players can usually immediately find issues with the work if they exist.

Whoever is making Radius beams should make these available.
12 inch radius for fingerboard before fretting
12+ inch radius for fret leveling.
And so on for other radii.

I made mine on the CNC and that is what I use exclusively.

Here is why... After putting a 12 inch radius on the fretboard and fretting, the radius of the top of the frets is a bigger radius than the bottom. It really matters. Because if you use the same 12 radius that you used to level the board, the ends of the frets will get sanded more than the middle. But if you use another, bigger radius beam you can level the frets evenly and remove an equal amount from end to end. It is a nice way to do it. This is my exclusive method for many guitars now. I mostly use a 12 inch radius though.

I can see how this is impractical for repair shops though since the radius is variable due to previous fret jobs and original work. But for the builder, this method works well.

And on a related issue, the fret press of 12 inch is not correct to press 12 inch radius fingerboard frets in! It is the same reasoning. The radius is larger by that small amount that makes the brass fret press touch the ends with a gap in the middle! And then there is the bridge saddle radius which is even a larger radius, but that is another story.

So, again, whoever makes fret cauls, should consider making a set that has the radius a little bigger to accommodate the increased radius from the addition of the actual fret plus the radius of the fingerboard.

_________________
Ken

Even better is to use the radius block on the board, and a flat beam on the frets. Sand in line with the string paths to create a compound radius. Basically, the frets near the middle of the board lose a little extra material toward their ends, but the frets near the nut and soundhole don't.

I'm a bit puzzled how you're having trouble in the first place, though. According to my calculations using http://liutaiomottola.com/formulae/sag.htm, the difference between 12" radius and 12.04" radius should leave a .0002" gap at the center of a 2.5" wide fret... which is about the width of two hairs.

Hesh could you please double check if Technofret is the correct name on ebay.... I tried it and no such luck. thanks

_________________
https://www.instagram.com/fostinoguitars/
https://www.facebook.com/PuraVidaUkuleles/

Sorry for buttin' in, but I was just there the other day.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TECHNOFRET-19-fret-leveling-beam-luthier-tool-/180903310166?hash=item2a1ead7356:m:ma4b01pPue9O2-bGvWybgQQ

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I use a radius block on new fretboards then level the board with the beam after the guitar is done. Frets are installed then leveled with the beam. Murray's beams are nice.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Thanks for your input. I am going to see how many swipes it takes to remove the black sharpie line all the way across with my 12+.

_________________
Ken

If I understand the arguments made here in our shop, a rule may be consistently read to half its smallest increment or graduation, so a rule graduated in 1/64" increments affords the ability to measure consistently to 1/128" (.008"), in 1/100ths to 1/200th (.005") and 1/2 millimeter (the most common graduation scheme for 6" pocket metric machinist rules) allows 1/4 millimeter (0.020") accuracy.

The Stewart MacDonald setup rules give .005" and .010" accuracy in decimal 100ths of an inch and 1/4 millimeter graduations, respectively, on the long edge's spread scale. None of us in the shop on a consistent basis are younger than 40, so the combination of smaller graduations (greater accuracy and precision in measurement) and the spread scale (ease of use and less chance of error) usually sees us employing decimal inches and 1/4 millimeters using the Stewart MacDonald string action gauges for 12th fret action and recording those values in thousandths and 1/8 millimeters.

We use the various Stewart MacDonald levelers, as well as a shorter diamond plate for mandolin fret work. I prefer not to shock myself by mentally adding up the cost for all these specialty tools when I attempt to replicate this shop's tool set at home, so Mr. Breakstone's lower cost recommendation for a leveler is on the list of things to peruse.

_________________
A constellation only takes shape when one maps the whole.
- Beth Brower

I'm a big fan of the leveling beam too. Someone on this forum talked about it many years ago and when I finally got one I was thrilled with how well it works. I use radius blocks to rough in a compound radius and then finish off with the beam.