About scales of fretboard

[Shawnglory]

Hello Luthiers

I am an aspiring one and will be heading for my first class scheduled for April. (Nope not Jeffery Yong's Class that I mentioned) This is a straight up one to one course paid at first and if he likes what I can probably do (which I know nothing of now) I'll be taken in as an apprentice (or somewhere along that line not requiring me to close down my companies).

I'm spending this month and the next finding out more about building guitars and what's possible and what isn't.

The first that I would really like to look at is the scale lengths and its possibility.

For my first (which is part of the 3 month course), I would like to create a guitar that really suits me really well without having to downtune and capo neck wise. This is a very rare opportunity for me because my customs so far have been a matter of give and take adjustments since I can't be there physically at times and when I am, it's not something that I can focus on and remind them every 2 hours and I'll hate to be an annoyance.

Is it possible for me to place them the way I want to to increase its playability? If I do shorten some, will I end up with say the length of the 15th fret on the 12? In that sense what do I end up sacrificing to achieve that? (Right now the songs I write goes up to the 14th fret and harmonics up to 19th and would hate to lose that as I've wrote at least 2 blank tab books full)

I'm guessing (I forgot to ask him) that inlay works are usually done before placing and / or cutting fret wire placements. How will this shorter scale affect that process?

I'm also thinking of thumb scalloping which he says isn't suggested on a first guitar. Is it truly risky to do so without prior experience to wood working?

Sorry about the massive amounts of questions. I'm really excited and even though I'm not expecting a masterpiece, I'd like my first to be a true to myself build and maybe in the future if all goes well, I'd like to revisit it and improve on it.

Cheers,
Shawn

[Shawnglory]

I forgot aside from the tension and the high gauge buzzes. *sorry*

[charles Tauber]

Congratulations on your decision to take a guitar making course.

My suggestion to you is to be clear on the purpose of your course. Is it to learn the basics of the art or to create a one-off customized instrument? If it is to learn the art, I suggest you start with the basics as it is represented on most guitars. For the most part, that means nothing experimental, nothing too off the beaten path. Once you've learned the basics you can experiment to your heart's content.

I'm not really sure what you are asking regarding fret placement/scale lengths. The fret positions are determined mathematically. You can use a single scale length, in which all strings are (theoretically) the same length and the frets are the same for each string. You can use multiple fixed scale lengths, in which, say, the two bass strings are longer than the other 4. The frets of the scale lengths need to align by one means or another or you will need discontinuous frets - those that don't span the full width of the fingerboard as a single bar, which has also been done. Lastly, you can use a "fan" fret in which each string has a different scale length and the continuous bar frets are slanted accordingly. Regardless, you can't just put the frets where every you want, other than to omit some, such as is done on dulcimers.

As for "thumb scalloping", I can find no reference to what this means. Do you mean scalloping the surface of the fingerboard between frets?

[John Arnold]

Is it possible for me to place them the way I want to to increase its playability?
If I do shorten some, will I end up with say the length of the 15th fret on the 12? In that sense what do I end up sacrificing to achieve that?

You can't just shorten some of the frets because it won't play in tune. Fret placement is automatically determined by the distance between the nut and saddle (AKA the scale length).
In other words, all the frets must be shortened by the same percentage.
A shorter scale results in lower string tension, assuming the tuning and the string gauge are the same.

I'm guessing (I forgot to ask him) that inlay works are usually done before placing and / or cutting fret wire placements.

Normally, the fretboard is slotted before the inlays are installed.

The first thing I tell a guitar player who wants to become a luthier is that it is a woodworking project. If you have no woodworking experience, you need to learn that first.