Official Luthiers Forum!

Thanks to all who have been singing the praise of full-length fret levelers. I've used the SM 16" on the last few. I was easily able to get 45-75 action on a Paul. More or Les. Open strings.

16" (15 3/8 active) doesn't quite clear all the Frets. 18" would be perfect, but it beats a file.

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Pat

They do work very well. I have also had a great improvement in my fret work.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

OLFer Murray also sells excellent leveling beams that we've vetted in our fretting classes for a very reasonable price. He's on eBay under "Technofret."

Full length is not necessary and the 16" is more desirable actually. There is fall-away too and that's why we use a full length and a 6 - 8" beam for the fall-away and the extension.

Not sure what civilized unit of measure you are using Pat but at our shop (and countless others stateside) we speak of action as measured at the 12th in 64th inches. The treble side is mentioned first in the convention followed by the bass side. No rule here this is simply the convention that IME many, not all stateside use.

There are some common specs out here to for quantifying action. These are only references and they do work very well for most.... people but not all. Here are some of the specs to give folks an idea of what's possible commonly:

Martin dr*ad spec for 12's: 4 and 6
Martin dr*ad spec for 13's: 5 and 7
low action electric bass: 5 and 7
low action electric 6 string: 4 and 5 or less than 5

Again these are reference specs. IME all 6 string acoustics should be capable of Martin's 12's spec with ease. If not the fret work sucks or there are neck and/or relief, angle, extension, loose frets, problems.

As for what's possible: We believe that a skilled human can out perform a PLEK with these beams once they have been checked and corrected if need be on a certified surface plate. The techniques for using them, the order or sequence, setting fall-away, consecutive grits of abrasives and judicious application of slight finger pressure in the right places at the right times are important too.

Great fret work is not only knowledge and skill there is an artful side to it too and I would argue even an intellectual function since the approach is all important and can vary with what we see on an individual basis.

Anyway Dave Collins has given that greaseball weekend wedding player for his Les Paul Standard action of 2/64" and 3/64" with NO buzzing before.

We have a class coming up in two weeks with one remaining opening too if anyone wants to learn how to do excellent fret work and set-ups.

Thanks for the info Hesh. Are you guys doing Fall Away on solid body electrics too? Bolt on?


Assuming in the relief area? With the shorter beam?


I've graduated to .000" of course! Post SMAG (stew mac action gauge) But, I'll translate to fractions if anyone should ask.

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Pat

Hey Pat:

Yes, fall away applies to electrics as much if not more so than acoustics reason being that electrics often have lower action than acoustics. The strings don't know or care what kind of guitar they are on but the fret plane better be right....

Fender style bolt on necks are infamous for ski-ramping over the body, the reverse of fall-away and that needs to be milled down and fall-away induced if low action is desired.

Regarding the techniques and methods that we use to do superb fret work we teach this in our classes and the reason why big mouth here never did a toot and put it in the public domain is that this is not something that we believe can be taught without a traditional instructor, student situation and relationship. It's complicated..... until you learn it.

I couldn't agree more - the hands on learning at Hesh and David's fretting class was invaluable. While a picture may be worth a thousand words (or 10K with Hesh!), actually seeing someone's hands doing a task is worth much more. Add to that the interaction between instructor and students, techniques and reasoning are much more apparent.
As a newby, learning a fretting method, start to finish, allows me to have a much better chance of making a playable guitar, and doing repair work with more confidence.
+1 for Murray's levelling beams! If you buy well, you don't have to buy twice.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Shame, Michigan is a bit to far away from my place to come for the class.

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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.

Maybe we should send Dave to the UK and Europe....

I too do all my setup in .000 also since investing in gauges. Take the measurements, put it on my spreadsheet and bingo, it tells me what I should do for low, medium or high action!!!

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Yup

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Some food for thought:

Regardless of how you measure or what unit of measure we use will the measurement always be the same if we first measure with the guitar on it's back on a bench and then compare it to what we measure with the guitar in the playing position in our laps?

First one to get this correct wins an OLF tub of lard (not really but it sounds good..)

Follow-up question if you believe the measurement may not be or will not be the same, why?

Yup

Lower action while on it's back because....gravity, and it's downward effect on the neck. I think.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

D@mn Alex, if you had just let Colin win the OLF Tub-o-lard, he could have greased up and started swimming to Michigan for the class!

Sorry but I gotta rib the fractions crowd a bit. Life is complicated enough. 32nd's must be a hold over from the days when they were the only available graduations on rulers luthiers could afford. It's bad enough to have imperial and metric. With the invention of the hand held calculator, decimals are a lot more practical.

Anyone ever try to work with carpenters who convert all fractions to 16th's? As in 8/16's instead of 1/2". Exasperating.

I'm with you Pat! I recognized your numbers straight away.

Before anyone protests about not being able to see 1/100" graduations, I'll put my plug in for my personal favorite unit. Straight from the," Department of good Idea's that will never be implemented". 1/50"'s on a Starrett ruler.
Easy to count by two's, not too much finer than 1/32" marks, and seamless transition from a calculator.

Every Convention had to start sometime!

Rant over.

Excellent!! Good Going Alex!!!! Any guitar can have some flex in it. Some basses can be enough flex that you can see it change without anything to measure with......

As such it's important when doing set-ups to do them in the playing position. I don't mean all that we do has to be in the playing position but any specs or measurements that we are targeting or subscribing to should have the measurements taken in the playing position.

Way to go Alex!

I can still see 1/128th" because Dave and I talk in terms of half a 64th" but these days and some days I'm straining to do so..... Getting to be a geezer here.....

Decimal inches would be nice but I use 64th's for setup because the three rulers I use for setup work are all marked in 64th's. In my day job I am constantly moving between SAE (USC), metric, and fractions - been doing it for so long I don't even think about it.

There's a reason those old carpenters call out everything in 16th's. When I was a trim carpenter I was part of a crew and I was taught to do all of our fractions in 16th's. So if I called seven three to my partner for a cut he knew I wanted 7 3/16". Twelve eight was 12 1/2" and so on. Made for faster and better communication which translated to fewer mistakes.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I was going to say, there's always Skype......., but it's not the same.

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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.

Gravity is my friend while laying down, and my enemy while standing! I'd be more than happy to send the OLF Tub o' Lard to Colin, if it could get him over for a visit!

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Our less sophisticated way of calling out 7 11/16" was "7 and a half, and an eighth, and one of those little marks"

My way of dealing with 1/32" inch, such as 2 31/32" is penciled as 2 15/16"+. I work on my own, so there is nobody to confuse. Well, almost nobody.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Depending on the particular makeup of carpenters on a given job site, an increment of 1/32" could be: a reduced fraction with strong/weak, +/-, heavy/light, +/- a fuzz, etc.. , or fractions expressed only in sixteenth's with any of the above, etc.
On and on. And then the carpenters may have to square their local measurement dialect with the shite rockers and electricians and the system they use!

Then what if Hesh and Dave show up with their fractions of fractions?

So, if the folks in the fraction faction have to do some math, you measure in 64ths, convert to decimals, use a calculator, convert back to the nearest 64th, (or 128ths expressed in 64th and a halves) and use your beloved ruler graduated in 64ths?

You guys are making my point for me.

Imagine a system that works with calculators, and measuring devices, without conversions, and a larger number equates to a bigger thing or space.

You may say I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one.

I knew this wasn't going to go over well.

Oh, and full length levelers

My fret position chart is written in decimal 64ths (i.e. 640ths) The first edition was 128ths but I felt it wasn't quite accurate enough since I could scoot the knife to either side of the half way point between marks on the ruler.

I've often thought about switching to metric, but the numbers always end up looking so much nicer in inches, and I'm a sucker for superficial things like that

But I do like metric for small numbers like plate thicknesses and action height. Though thousandths of an inch are fine as well. I don't really like measuring steel string action in 64ths because there's such a big difference between 3/64" and 4/64".

As for the actual topic, I've been using an 8" XF dia-sharp stone to level frets, which works ok, but I do need to try a long leveler. And I actually bought one a long time ago... I just need to find some 2" or narrower adhesive sandpaper for it. And the dia-sharp should still be useful for doing fall-away.

In a past life, I saw a drawing once where the engineer was apparently told he had to use fractions. So for one troublesome dimension, he kept after it until he found one close enough. It was something like 3 - 42/73". Point made, I suppose.

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Phil

http://www.oleninstruments.com

"Those who tilt at windmills are only considered insane by those who can't see the dragon."

- working in fractions of an inch seems so much more fun than using metric.

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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.