Fretless Guitar Build - WIP.

[davy_owen_88]

Well as promised I'm going to be documenting the build of my custom fretless guitar. I made a start on this project about 6 months ago and only got as far as cutting out the body blank when a job came up. Now that job is complete I'm ready to continue.

Originally the plan was for a 6-string fretted guitar but after playing a fretless I have decided to do away with the frets and add an extra string for good measure. The materials used consist of an alder body, maple neck and a bubinga fretboard.

I start by drawing a centre line down all the timber. Centre lines are very important in guitar building - you use them to align jigs, they give you a point to measure from after you start cutting out the curves and they make sure that everything lines up when you are finished... hopefully :wink:

After the centre line is drawn, draw one line perpendicular to the centre line to indicate the position of the nut and mark another line where the last fret will be located. I am using a 25.5" scale length and there will be 24 frets so the distance between the nut and 24th fret will be 485.775mm. Then you need to decide on the neck width at the nut and at the 24th fret. This varies depending on the bridge you use and personal preference but I chose 1-15/16" at the nut and 2-19/32" at the last fret. Halve the numbers and measure from the centre line. Join up the dots and this gives you the fingerboard shape.

Rough cut this on the bandsaw and and trim using a straight edge and a flush cutting bit in the router.

Next I decided on the headstock design. I'm basing my guitar around the John Petrucci Musicman guitar so I found a good picture, resized the headstock and printed it out. It took a few attempts but eventually you get a life size template. Rough it out on the bandsaw and sand to the line with the oscillating spindle sander.

Machine up some maple and route a groove along the centre line for the truss rod. Then place the fingerboard and headstock template onto the neck blank and trace the outline - rough cut it on the bandsaw and using a flush cutting bit tidy up the headstock. Insert the truss rod (with a little bit of silicone in the middle to prevent vibration) and glue on the fingerboard.

The eagle eyed amongst you might notice that the bubinga in the glue up is not the same as that shown in the first picture. The reason is simple... I totally forgot to take any pictures so I had to improvise I also forgot to route the truss rod channel before I cut it to size so I had to knock up a quick jig to get the groove centred and as you can see, it went a little off target towards the end. No worries though, a fancy truss rod cover will hide that

When the glue dries I will trim around the fingerboard, thin down the headstock and then I can get on with carving the neck.

 

[llangatwgnedd]

Looking good, but can you tell me why no frets on a finger board?

 

[davy_owen_88]

It's just a different sound and a different feel. It also helps to train your ear - you have to be able to intonate every note you play in real time instead of relying on the frets to do it for you.


Here is a shot of the body after rough cutting/sanding. The neck pocket is very rough as it was originally for the 6-string neck and will be tidied up tomorrow when the new neck is out of the clamps.

The edges will be rounded over with a 1/2" round over bit and I may go up to a 3/4" round over depending on how it looks. The arm contour needs some more fine tuning but that was cut with a spokeshave and a ROS with 60g paper.

 

[davy_owen_88]

Well the glue has had the night to dry so it's time to get cracking. I started by trimming the maple to size with a flush cutting bit in the router. Once that is done it is time to cut the neck pocket. I start with a piece of 12mm ply. Place the neck down and create a template using offcuts and double sided tape.

Cut out the majority of the waste with the bandsaw and clean up the edges with the flush cutting bit. Don't worry about the corners, you can tidy those up with a chisel later.

Place the template over the body and line up the centre lines. You can attach the template with double sided tape but I don't want this to move so four screws placed where the pick-up cavities will be later do the job. Using the faithful flush cutting bit, route out the neck pocket.

You may have noticed the maple shim that is glued to the bottom of the neck pocket. I originally planned for this to be a fretted guitar and as such the neck pocket needs to be deeper to allow for the added height of the frets, but since I have decided to go fretless I needed to raise the neck slightly. On a customers guitar I would have started from scratch but since this is for my own use and it will be finished with an opaque lacquer, I'm prepared to live with it.

Tomorrow I will flatten the pocket and trim the shim to shape using, you guessed it - the flush cutting bit. Actually, the flush cutting bit is used so much when I'm building a guitar, I think it's only fair that they get a picture too...

Now that the neck pocket is complete I can begin to carve the neck. I start by tilting the table on my bandsaw to about 40 degrees and knocking off the corners.

Draw a centre line down the back of the neck and mark the neck-body join. Then get out a rasp and start rounding the back of the neck over. Leave a gap near the headstock and remember to keep the part that meets the body flat. You can always fine tune those later.

When you have it roughed out you can switch to some 60g paper to smooth out the rough marks and begin the rough shaping.

Tomorrow I'm going to the pub, so I will resume on Thursday

 

[Benchwayze]

Hi Davy,

Should this be a bass guitar I wonder?

I didn't think you could get much from a fretless guitar. For sure it would be a different sound. Very little top-cut in the tone I would think. Hence why fretless is usually confined to bass guitars.

Maybe I have discovered another piece of new info although, I have enough trouble fretting properly on a normal guitar! So the Best of British Davy!

Anyhow it looks promising and maybe we will hear you play it on YouTube!

John

 

[davy_owen_88]

I didn't think you could get much from a fretless guitar.

Heard of a guitarist called Ron Thal? Here he is with his fretless:

A truly phenomenal guitarist, perfect pitch, a discography that covers so many different styles and he's a genuinely nice guy. Oh and hes a funny so and so too. He's currently playing with Guns 'N Roses.

 

[Benchwayze]

Hi Davy,
Yes I have, but only as a name. His CV sounds a bit like Fred Baker, in his abilities.

I didn't know about the fretless though. I guess it would work well with the 'tapping -technique', but the problem with tapping is, without amplification, even Stanley Jordan would struggle to be heard!

Thanks for the info. I will check him out!

I am a jazzer you see. Too old to change now!

Although..... I might have a go at making one! I always fancied a Strat! ccasion5:

John

 

[aisuru]

my mate's got a fretless guitar - he converted some old BC Rich he got cheap by removing the frets and filling the gaps left. not pretty, but it works. i think he rarely uses it though, since there's few practical reasons to do so. he says sliding pinched harmonics up and down the neck is fun though.

 

[davy_owen_88]

my mate's got a fretless guitar - he converted some old BC Rich he got cheap by removing the frets and filling the gaps left. not pretty, but it works. i think he rarely uses it though, since there's few practical reasons to do so. he says sliding pinched harmonics up and down the neck is fun though.

If he's playing a BC Rich I can only assume he loves his metal in which case a fretless really isn't suitable. The fretless is going to be my 'ear training' guitar. When you master it the possibilities are endless. A top class fretless player can play a fretless like a normal guitarist can play a fretted guitar but when he wants the effect of a slide on every finger he has it :lol: