planing relief into a fretboard

[arie]

ran across this technique and was wondering if anybody had experience with it or is doing this? in theory is sounds good but it seems like fret leveling might be a bit harder? esp. biasing the relief toward the bass side of the neck to account for the extra excursion of the bass strings.

comments?

[Ned Milburn]

Originally Posted by arie

ran across this technique and was wondering if anybody had experience with it or is doing this? in theory is sounds good but it seems like fret leveling might be a bit harder? esp. biasing the relief toward the bass side of the neck to account for the extra excursion of the bass strings.

comments?

Do you know what standard double bass fingerboards are like? They often (especially for classical players) have an interesting hump under their 3rd string. (The hump MAY be going out of fashion now, I'm not sure. Most jazz bassists have the humps flattened to match the overall curvature of the fingerboard, or else they purchase instruments made or modified with no hump.

So, when I was still performing solo classical guitar recitals, I always had trouble with the full barre especially on the G-string. Since human fingers are not flat, I thought to myself, "Hey, this bass fingerboard hump would work well on a classical guitar" and I proceeded with permission to adapt the fingerboard of a guitar that a friend had built in such a fashion.

The guitar played well, albeit with an unusual feel (because it WAS unusual).

So, my point is that, like a teacher of mine, Ralph Towner, once said when I asked him what rules he uses for composition - "If it works, use it. If it doesn't, don't."

Now, regarding planing a fingerboard in the fashion you mention, I have not done so myself, but similar to my modified "hump" fingerboard, it does require great awareness of the fingerboard profile/relief to be able to level the frets in such a fashion. I am dubious of the technique, however, because the higher you go on the bass side, you would be required to press the string at a different angle than the rest of the strings to push it straight onto the fingerboard.

You could always try one on a junker guitar to see how you like the process and playability.

Dunno if this post helps at all, but maybe it will help stimulate some thought...??

[arie]

thanks ned. the technique i read about was from somogyi's responsive guitar book and seemed to imply that one could add the neck relief by pre-stressing the neck (by hand), planing off the estimated amount like .003, .005 etc.. or so, before stringing up the guitar and engaging the truss rod.

i suspect that this comes from his classical and flamenco guitar background and was something he translated on over to steel string guitars.

i guess what i'm asking here is that is this useful or a carryover from other traditions?. i understand the theory behind it but can't seem to make the connection to the practical or usefulness just yet. it would seem to make leveling frets harder but then again when all is said and done and the guitar is under tension, the frets aren't level anyway.

then there's the offsetting the neck .125 to add more treble side string room...

[Ned Milburn]

Originally Posted by arie

thanks ned. the technique i read about was from somogyi's responsive guitar book and seemed to imply that one could add the neck relief by pre-stressing the neck (by hand), planing off the estimated amount like .003, .005 etc.. or so, before stringing up the guitar and engaging the truss rod.

i suspect that this comes from his classical and flamenco guitar background and was something he translated on over to steel string guitars.

i guess what i'm asking here is that is this useful or a carryover from other traditions?. i understand the theory behind it but can't seem to make the connection to the practical or usefulness just yet. it would seem to make leveling frets harder but then again when all is said and done and the guitar is under tension, the frets aren't level anyway.

then there's the offsetting the neck .125 to add more treble side string room...

Gotcha. Now I understand more about what you mean. Some classical guitar builders step their first 3 to 5 frets when levelling them to create a similar effect. Classical guitar necks, as you likely know, are so robust and with 1/2 the tension (aprox.) of steel strings so there is not much relief in the neck even under tension. So, the technique you describe seems to be an interesting way to add some relief. I prefer, however, the idea of stepping the frets, because it will leave the wood in a stable non-stressed geometry, and any amount of stepping/relief can be added when fret levelling.

In fact, whether deliberate or not, I have seen a couple Larrive guitars (steel strings) where the stepped-fret technique existed. On one of these, I kept the same stepped nature when I levelled and dressed the frets. Larrive, I am told, had collaboration with Edgar Monch (German born classical builder of great reknown (Segovia/Bream) who settled for a decade or more in the Toronto area and shared some/much of his guitar building knowledge with many of the Toronto area 1st tier guitar builders.), so it would make sense that L'arrive would be aware of this technique.

[Bob Womack]

Originally Posted by arie

ran across this technique and was wondering if anybody had experience with it or is doing this? in theory is sounds good but it seems like fret leveling might be a bit harder? esp. biasing the relief toward the bass side of the neck to account for the extra excursion of the bass strings.

comments?

My luthier, Kenny Marshall, does this extensively to deal with settling-out issues in older guitars. For instance, I had a 1974 Les Paul that had a compound bow in the neck. No matter how you set relief, you couldn't get the treble and bass sides into anywhere near the same territory. In fact, to give you an idea of the extent of the compound, it was possible to have a slight negative bow on the bass side while having a slight positive bow in the middle of the treble side. Kenny planed some off the top and bottom of the bass side and the middle of the treble side to bring the fretboard back into tolerance. Now the neck has one of the best actions I've ever played. He did the same for an older acoustic guitar of mine as well. Besides being an actual luthier with his own line of guitars, Kenny describes himself as a "playability specialist," and it is an apt description.

During Martin Guitar's period of the unadjustable box truss rod this was the only method available to adjust the relief on the necks. There arose quite a cottage industry of people who were able to optimize the actions of Martins for light players and fingerstylists by this method.

Bob