Official Luthiers Forum!

OK I cut the fret slots for my first build earlier today and everything was going well until the 12th fret.....of course it had to be the 12th! Anyway I must not have had enough side pressure on the saw blade and when I cut the slot it wandered a bit short. Looks to be about 1/64" short, (closer to the nut), of where I wanted it. I'm thinking it will still be plenty fine since I'll be the one playing it and my ear is not all that good anyway. But figured it was worth asking if this will cause any significant problems with intonation or.....??? I don't want to re-make it, but if it's going to be problematic I will.

thanks,
Jeff

Well, if everything else is perfect, notes on that fret will be ~2 cents flat. If that bothers you, you can tilt the crown most of 1/64" when you level/re-crown the frets, to reduce it to less than 1 cent error. Most standard guitars aren't anywhere near that accurate on most of their frets.

You could pull the fret, fill the slot with a sliver of fretboard wood and re-cut the slot, but with the differences in wood hardness/glue etc. either side of the saw blade as you try to re-cut, I doubt you'd be able to get it much more accurate than it is now.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

What Trevor said and when you go to place your bridge you want to measure from the nut to where the 12th fret would be and from where the 12the fret would be to the saddle plus compensation.
I think.

Putting in a sliver of ebony would probably be the least stressful.

You could just grind off the fret tangs on one side of that fret then glue it in with CA

Pack the slot with wood dust (an x-acto knife ground to a chisel point is a handy tool for this, as well as for cleaning dust out of fret slots), soak it with thin CA, and recut the slot.

My $.02 -- this is a musical tool/instrument, do not construct it with the octave fret in the wrong position. Fill and re-cut or a complete new board, have you measured all the other slots series fashion from the nut to check your work?

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I'm with Ken. It's a musical instrument. Even if it's ugly it can make beautiful music. But if the frets are in the wrong place, it can't make beautiful music. So that's now $0.04 in that direction.

1/64 of an inch? Forget it. You'll never hear it. At that margin of error you are into the weeds with respect to compensation, your particular preference for action height, how accurately you press the string straight down, what kind of string you use etc. Heck, I like to leave at least that much flat on every fret when I'm re-crowning them after leveling. Press on and don't stress out. Besides which Trevor was right - you are very unlikely to get that accurate re-sawing over a fix anyway.

Pat

_________________
There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

Ok I slept on it last night and looked at it anew this morning. I know I'd never hear the difference, and likely it would work out just fine. But something just bugged me about it. Then I got to thinking of how to properly fix it. Not a big fan of the sawdust and glue thing....just personal preference. In my mind the proper way to fix a problem like this is to fill with wood and re-cut. Of course the idea of cutting a crossgrain piece at roughly .021" thick with a slight taper to allow for glue and a tight seam seemed like it would be pretty difficult.....so that's what I did! I figure if I'm really going to build this thing I need to be able to fix a few oops along the way. Anyway the repair looks pretty good, it's actually very hard to find since with the new slot there's not much of it to see. Once the fret goes in the repair area should be completely covered and I'll rest assured that the 12th fret is in the right place. The guitar still may end up sounding like garbage.....but that fret will be right anyway!

thanks and Happy New Year!
Jeff

So now if you compensate the nut....

Good for you Jeff! -- says a lot about artistry and craftsmanship

_________________
Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I fixed mistakes like this by gluing ebony veneers into the slot, and recutting them elsewhere. Hopefully the fret will hide the flaw (use a wide fretwire)

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Okay. My turn to pipe in here.
I play lap steel guitar,
and build them.
I noticed when I play in tune to my ear,
which is very good,
I'm way not over the fret.
especially 2nd, 4th and 11th(?).
I noticed it was the same on all of my builds.
I use a fret layout ruler, so...
Anyway,
I went to a class where Steve Kimock taught,
and low and behold,
he told us certain fretted notes are out of tune.
He used a lap steel to show us.
So, I think one should get everything as close as possible,
but,
a fretted guitar will be out of tune at some locations.
If I was you,
I would cut a new fretboard,
or fill and cut in a new 12th fret,
just because that is a very important fret.

Nut compensation will get those wrong spots a lot closer to right.

"certain fretted notes are out of tune" doesn't begin to touch the scale of the problem. Given the problems of intonation and temperament (bending notes so that the same 12 notes work in all 12 keys and you don't have to think about the difference between A# and Bb) it's a miracle that fretted instruments work at all. The most comprehensive explanation I've ever seen is here:
http://www.doolinguitars.com/intonation ... tion1.html
but it's not for the faint hearted.
To sum up, I completely understand why you fixed that fret - I'd almost certainly have done the same myself, the same way - but in terms of playing music I'd be very surprised if you could hear the difference.

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"There is hope in honest error .... ". Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
http://www.ianchisholm.co.uk

Thanks Ian, I can guarantee I'd never know the difference. I've been playing off and on for.....well lets just say a very long time:) I still rely on using a tuner to get my guitar in tune and find it awesome that guys can do it by ear.....just not me! That's the level I'm at and while I'll hopefully improve my skills over time, I'm not sure I'll get to the point where I can hear minute differences. So anyway the new fret slot is good, but I'm sure there will be a hundred other places I can go wrong before all is done;>) I am curious now though at the level of accuracy guys strive for in this instance.....may be worthy of a new thread though?

Jeff