Posted on June 6, 2024May 23, 2025 by Dale Phillips Questions: Scale Length Questions: Scale Length by R.M. Mottola and Tim Olsen Originally published in American Lutherie #93, 2008 Byron from the Internet asks: Is there any way to determine the scale length of an instrument from a piece of the fingerboard? I have the fingerboard from an instrument that is currently being restored. The nut end had been trimmed, I think to accommodate some kind of odd nut. The Questions column editor responds: All inter-fret distances are related to scale length, so measuring, say, the distance between the 1st and 2nd fret and then looking that up on a fret scale chart will tell you the scale length. Or measure the distance between the 7th and 19th fret (assuming the instrument has a 19th fret of course) and multiply by three. The result will be within a few hundredths of the actual scale length, close enough to identify it. American Lutherie editor Tim Olsen responds: Imagine you put a capo on the 1st fret of a functional guitar. Measure from the 1st fret (now functioning as the nut) to the 13th (now functioning as the 12th), and double that to find the mathematical bridge point. If the fretboard is still on the guitar, you can find that point near the saddle and mark it. If the fretboard is not on the guitar, you can clamp it to something, like a 2×4, and mark the bridge point on that. Now you could easily find the nut point by measuring from the newly marked bridge point back to the 12th and doubling it. Confirm it by calculating the scale and checking the position of the individual frets. ◆
Posted on June 6, 2024May 27, 2025 by Dale Phillips Questions: Crownless Frets Questions: Crownless Frets by James Westbrook and R.M. Mottola Originally published in American Lutherie #89, 2007 Gilles Danis from the Internet asks: I have been asked by a museum to restore an old guitar. It is a rather cheaply made thing from the early 20th century. The frets do not have crowns. They are just thin flat bars on their sides with barbs at the bottom. Do you know of a source for such fretwire? James Westbrook from England replies: I get my bar fret stock from Makoto Tsuruta in Japan. I think there are a few different sizes. His website is www.crane.gr.jp., and his e-mail address is mmm@st.rim.or.jp. The Questions Column editor adds: Nickel-alloy sheets of various thicknesses and alloy composition are available from McMaster Carr (www.mcmaster.com) but they need to be cut into strips for use as bar frets. Sheet metal places or machine shops that have shears can do this cheaply. ◆
Posted on June 6, 2024May 14, 2025 by Dale Phillips Google Calculator and the Guitar’s Magic Number Google Calculator and the Guitar’s Magic Number by William Leirer Originally published in American Lutherie #96, 2008 Since the frequency of the octave note at fret 12 is two times the frequency of the open string, the fret positions can be determined by finding a number that can be multiplied by itself 12 times to get 2. That’s the guitar’s magic number: the 12th root of 2. In one form or another, it is a part of every calculation related to scales, fret placement, intonation, compensation, and much more. When Google perceives an entry in its search field to be math, it switches from search mode to calculator mode and displays the answer. Any calculator can solve a math problem, and there are plenty of online fret calculators. But with Google Calculator we can view the entire equation at once and see the effect of substituting one part at a time, helping us to understand the “why” behind the numbers. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on August 1, 2022May 23, 2025 by Dale Phillips Conical Radius Fretboard Formula Conical Radius Fretboard Formula by Elaine Hartstein Originally published in American Lutherie #34, 1993 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume Three, 2004 As a follow-up to Tim Earls’ article “In Search of the Perfect Cone” in American Lutherie #30, I’ve come up with a formula for finding the hypothetically-ideal radius for the fingerboard at any distance from the nut. Since a set of nonparallel strings cannot lie flat on a cylindrical fretboard, we wish to discover the geometry of the cone described by the strings. As Tim Olsen suggested, the outside strings (as opposed to the edges of the fingerboard) should define the cone. The cone defined by the fingerboard edge would give results with a smaller radius. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on July 1, 2022May 23, 2025 by Dale Phillips Questions: Fingerboard of Orpharion Questions: Fingerboard of Orpharion by Chris Goodwin Originally published in American Lutherie #93, 2008 Wayne S. from the Internet asks: Can someone tell me what the idea behind the layout of the fingerboard of the orpharion is? Chris Goodwin from the Internet responds: The explanation lies in the limitations of metallurgy in the Renaissance. The basic problem of lute family instruments is that you are looking for strings which are all the same length to make a musical sound with open tunings ranging over two octaves. If you have a reasonably fine bass string that makes a good musical note and provides reasonable intonation when fretted, then the top string has to be very thin and under very high tension to sound two octaves higher. They couldn’t make wires strong enough in those days. Orpharion, copy after Francis Palmer, made by Peter Forrester. Photo by Peter Forrester. The sloping frets partially resolve this problem by making the bass strings longer than the treble. The treble string could be shorter, and so didn’t have to be at such high tension to sound at a high note, and the bass strings didn’t have to be fat and chunky (and produce a dull unmusical thud, instead of a clear note) because they were longer. This is explained very well by Ian Harwood in an (English) Lute Society booklet on the Helmingham bandora. Purchase the booklet from the Lute Society: Lutesoc@aol.com.
