The Steel Guitar Forum

I'm reworking a cheap lap steel I got off of the auction site. The fret board that is on this unit is not of the highest quality so I'm looking to have a new one made.

The question I have is; How accurate do the frets have to be spaced? Most of the fret spacing charts I'm seeing seem to be scaled to about 3 decimal places. However, I don't think the fret markings on the original are that accurate since they seem to be about an eight inch wide.

Any suggestions on how accurate they need to be and what is the best method for manufacturing the fret board would be?

Hi,

On making the fretboard: be a bit accurate, at least for the looks. Check if the space between frets to the next position is smaller. A bad positioned fret that gives therefor a bit more space between the followup position looks really bad.

If you look at your fretboard from position 1 to the last one, and see the gap between marker 1 and 2. The gap between marker 2 and 3 should be smaller. The gap between marker 3 and 4 should be smaller etc. It sound pretty obvious, but a mistake at the higher positions is easy done.
Ah! It reminds me of fretslot sawing when I didn't have the templates and the machines...

Of course now I use a circle-saw with template in the wokshop.

Quickest thing is probably to ask a local luthier to saw you a wooden fretboard at the right scale. You can decide to do the inlay yourself then.

Have fun with the project!

Fern

There are other sites that deal with this, but you can go to this site, type in your scale length ( distance between nut and bridge), and it will calculate where each fret should be placed on the beck.
http://buildyourguitar.com/resources/fr ... rptclc.htm

Why not go to wfret and follow the instructions and get a printout of the fretboard. It saves all that fiddling about with a ruler and anyway how do you get accuracy when calculators go to three places of decimals.

You will find how to download wfret zip at http://musicalfish.org/ about halfway down the page.