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Topic: Wanted: a computer program for printing out a fingerboard |
Keith Cary
From:
California, USA
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Posted 7 Mar 2013 8:23 am |
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| Hi, I'm building a double-8 right now and I'm about to do the fingerboards. My usual method is do the whole fret scale calc (available online at stewmac.com) and draw the frets on a paper, do the artwork, cover the paper with 1/8" plexi. It's a lot of work to draw fret lines accurately by hand. Does anyone have a way to do it in Photoshop, etc?--- I'm excited to be trying a 23.5" scale. |
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David Mason
From:
Cambridge, MD, USA
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Posted 7 Mar 2013 10:00 am
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I do know that a decent printing/copy shop can do ANYTHING, as far as sizing goes, and lengths and colors and what they can print it onto - gets better every year. If you tell the guy that the "0" and the "12" have to be exactly 11.75" apart, it may take him several tries on cheap paper before they run it on plastic signage board (maybe you could supply aluminum? who knows). You have to pay them for their time and effort, but still, unless you're going into major-pro builder volume, it's impossible for the right printers and all to be cost-effective yourself. Unless it's a new part of your hobbies, AKA "hobby-creep." 
Another option is to go to LMII and buy pre-slotted wood fretboards, $9 for the slotting:
http://www.lmii.com/CartTwo/thirdproducts.asp?CategoryName=+Shop+Services&NameProdHeader=Fingerboard+Slotting
It looks like they only have boards slotted to 25 (or so) dimensions longer than your 23.5" - but when you use the scale calculators that also give you bridge-to-fret dimensions, somewhere in those 25 (or so) scales is going to be a board length that has a 1st or 2nd or 4th or 5th fret placement ridiculously close to your 23.5" nut location. And LMII can cut fret slots up to 32 or 35 or something, depending. I have one of those scale calculators bookmarked somewhere but you can find one as fast as I can, I'm sure. Oh OK here:
http://windworld.com/features/tools-resources/exmis-fret-placement-calculator/#fretcalculator
Just poke in all of LMII's longer scales till you find a 23.5", some FRET-to-bridge placement. Then you just saw it off there, slobber paint or woodfiller into the slots or pound in some alternate-colored binding, etc etc. There is but one mountain, with many paths - with at least one cheezy metaphor for every one! |
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Iestyn Lewis
From:
Georgia, USA
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Posted 7 Mar 2013 1:09 pm
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Go here:
http://www.ekips.org/tools/guitar/fretfind2d/
Enter your scale length (I use 23 inches, other common scales are 22.5 and 24 inches).
Set the string widths to be equal (unless you want some taper in your strings)
Set the number of strings to 0 to just print the fretlines.
Save to PDF.
Use this program:
http://www.anypdftools.com/pdf-to-word.html#153
and convert it to Word format.
In Word, you can draw over the fretlines and add your fret markers. (If the images don't want to go over the fretlines, right click the image and choose "Size and Position", click Text Wrapping and choose "In front of text".)
Now you can print this out on glossy paper and embed it under plexiglass, or you can print it out on waterslide decal paper and apply it directly to the guitar, or you can print laminate and double-stick tape to your guitar.
_________________
Iestyn
http://facebook.com/trcguitars |
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James Kerr
From:
Scotland, UK
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Posted 7 Mar 2013 1:13 pm
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This site used to work for me, but the owner did an upgrade and now it don't work for me.
http://www.ekips.org/tools/guitar/fretfind2d/
It was really good giving options for string width at neck and bridge, then give you a PDF to save which you could then open in Photoshop and colour in to your own taste and print out on Ink Jet on 2 pieces of A4 Photo Paper, see here :-
I have a basic 23 Inch PDF (no design, just the frets) which I can send to you to mess around with.
James.
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Alan Brookes
From:
Brummy living in Southern California
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Posted 7 Mar 2013 4:36 pm
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| I have an Excel worksheet that can calculate the fret positions for any string length. If you're interested, email me at afbrookes@aol.com. |
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Keith Cary
From:
California, USA
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Posted 7 Mar 2013 10:36 pm fret calc
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Thank you all. I'm grateful for how many of you jumped right in with good suggestions. Iestyn's system is perfect for my purposes. I'm amazed at how easy this was. Iestyn, you must have worked at this a while to get this all to work together. Many thanks,
Keith |
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