Guitar frets for Ed.

[James Stokes]

I am attaching a couple guitar fret cuts here to show what I am talking about.

[Brian Robison]

Hi James, why are they slanted?

[James Stokes]

This Particular manufacturer makes a fan fret guitar. Here is their web page. You can look at some of their guitars there.

http://www.conklinguitars.com/bizarr...s/biz8stg.html

[Brian Robison]

OK,
I have a hard enough time with 6 and 12 strings!
Start messing with my frets and I'm lost!
Thanks James.

[Anthony Scira]

So are you vector cutting or rastering the slots. Usually the fretwire needs a slot of about .023". So a vector line would be a little narrow for the fretwire. And rastering seems like it would take a while.

[James Stokes]

These are vectored. They are mainly alignment marks for the layout. They go back with a fret saw to get the actual width with.

[Anthony Scira]

Using it for guidelines makes more sense. I tried to make the lines .021 inches wide and rastering to the proper depth. It took 3 passes and way too long to make it economical. Since I have a table saw and a template it only takes 5 minutes.

BTW how did you lay out your lines. I found a way but it seems like there would be a lot more of an efficient way.

I used the guidelines and editied the spacing to the exact dimensions. Then snapped lines to the guidelines.

I will post a picture tomorrow.

[James Stokes]

I do not do the layout just the cutting, but I would think the easiest way would be to use step and repeat.

[Cary Fleming]

I've done some work for a guy that is building custom guitars that have varying neck lengths. I did some research on all of the luthier web sites and found the formula for determining the fret spacing. Using that I wrote a script in CorelDraw to layout a 3" wide pattern of fret lines with the requested number of frets using the specified neck length. I'll upload the script when I get back home tonight.

[Jerry Allen]

Anthony,
I have done it using a couple of ways that are similar.
Both use either a chart of distances from fret 0 to each fret, or from each fret to the next.
The first line is placed.
Then press the + key which dups the line.
In the property bar at the top, add to X either the absolute distance, or delta to the next fret and press enter. I.e.,X=2.50in+1.93.

I have only done a couple but still need to tweek my method for cutting.
I vectored all the frets by offseting the lines about .004 several times at each position. It goes pretty fast. In hardwood the depth can vary a little so I still made some passes with a backsaw to even it out and clean up the char. Mostly I over powered which leaves a grovve showing at the edges. I need to lower the power and/or test first next time.

My designs are not Stradivarius quality. Just "sticks" for my own use.

(I misssed a fret on this one--just haven't gotten around to fixin it)

[Brian Robison]

Jerry, looks like you missed several frets, and 3 strings too!

[Jerry Allen]

Brian, nope, just one. This "stick" is strung like a dulcimer.

[Cary Fleming]

I'll upload the script when I get back home tonight.

Sorry it's taken me so long to upload this. I've been busy (thankfully) and I needed to make some changes to the UI to make this more user-friendly. Anyway, extract FretCalc.gms into the GMS folder in your CorelDraw folder.

To run it go to Tools, Visual Basic, Play and select modFretCalc.FretLayout. A dialog box will pop up for you to enter the scale length, neck width and the number of frets you want laid out. You can enter the scale length and neck width in inches, millimeters or centimeters. It will start the layout 1/8" from the left of the page with a line for the nut and then the frets go right from there.

I hope someone finds this useful. It takes me longer to load the material and start the laser than it does to layout the fretboard since I wrote this routine.

[Ed Newbold]

Thanks James and Carey for the files. You guys are great!