Conical Fingerboards

[lacrombie]

Hi All,

I want to make a guitar with a conical fingerboard. I am in the process of designing a jig to produce the said fingerboards - is the conical radius projected over the scale length of the guitar - say 16" at the nut to 20" at the saddle - or the length or the fingerboard to a particular fret - 16" at the nut to 20" at the 12th fret? Obviously the 16" - 20" at the 12th fret is projected through to the saddle but it will then become 24" - what is the normal method of defining a 16"-20" fingerboard?

Thanks

[kiwigeo]

See here: http://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/Neck_re ... adius.html

[graham mcdonald]

People have come up with some wonderfully complicated ways to achieve a conical or compound radius fretboard and the discussion forums have regular posting on people agonizing over exactly which combination of radii to use. A perfectly functional conical/compound radius board can be made quite easily. Slot the board and cut it to the final tapered shape. Mark a line 1mm down from each top edge and plane/sand a bevel down to the 1mm mark on either side so the bevel extends about a quarter/a third the width of the board. Plane/sand another two facets leaving an unbevelled strip in the centre. With a long sanding block (half a sheet of 80grit glued to a piece of melamine covered mdf) refine the curve so the centreline is barely touched and the edges are 1mm below the centre all the way along. The creates the compound radius, though I have no idea what combination of radii it might be. It doesn't really matter if the cross section isn't perfectly circular. What is important is the a ruler laid along the line of a string touches all the way along. Jim Williams described this method in his book in the mid 80s and he would have got it from the people he learnt from in the US (Charles Fox being amongst them). I think it is all to easy to be seduced into over-complicating some aspects of building stringed instruments.

cheers

graham

[Allen]

That's the most elegant and simple description I've ever read on doing that Graham. Thanks.