Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello Friends,

Here's a confusing situation...
I ran into an acoustic steel string guitar that had 13 frets to the body???

It tunes up ok but to play a song or two you must put a capo on the 1st fret. Sometimes you must slide the capo to a different fret to play in tune. And so on and so on!!!
Obviously the neck joint was missed by one fret. It should be 12 or 14 frets to the body...Right??

It was an error in construction and I'm not sure how to correct this problem. The person that owns the guitar is a nice guy and I hate to ask him if he can spell F-I-R-E-W-O-O-D??
I could'nt be that rude.
Can it be corrected and how?

Would appreciate your assistance and advice.

walter

I have made several 13 fret guitars. Was the bridge installed incorrectly? It doesn't matter where the neck attaches to the box as long as the bridge is placed according to the octave fret (12th). The 12th fret has no relation to the box, only to the nut & bridge/saddle.

_________________
Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

It would possible to build to a 13 fret at neck joint, and if all things are kept in proper relationship to the scale length (sound hole. bridge/saddle) there should be no problem a far as playability. It sounds to me that the scale length to saddle location or the fret slotting locations are out.

john you bet me to it

Walter, there are quite a few 13 fret guitars out there, though I wouldn't call them "common". As John and Michael said, as long as the nut/neck/saddle relationship is ok, it doesn't matter where the neck attaches.
If you fret teh 12th, and then play that same string open, are they perfect octaves of each other? If so, the nut/neck/saddle relationship is good and there really shouldn't be a problem. If it's way off then yes, firewood comes to mind.

Well....
The first test I made was to pull out the "Saddle-O-Matic and checked the distance from the nut to the 12th fret..everything was OK there. Then I re-measured from the 12th fret to the front of the saddle. Everything checked out there as well.
Now I'm really getting confused.
Could it be that he put the wrong scale fretboard on the neck?????????
I'll check that.
Does it make any difference what scale he used???
Help. I really feel sorry for this Kid. Now what??
walter

It doesn't matter what scale is used regardless of how many frets to the body as long as the bridge is positioned right... something else is wrong!!

Maybe the frets were cut on the wrong places and out of scale?

Measure the length from the nut to the bridge to determine aprox scale length and then compare fret placement with a know correct scale or get measurements online. Stewmac has them.

_________________
Peter M.
Cornerstone Guitars
http://www.cornerstoneukes.com

as long as the distance from the 12th to the nut and the uncompensated distance from the 12th to the saddle is correct and the fret slots are proper spacing for said scale then it should be fine. Now you must check out the each individual fret spacing, because you said the nut to 12th matches the 12th to uncompensated saddle. so the error must be between the 12 and the nut, therefore 1st-11th fret positions

The nut position could cause problems too if it's over or under compensated.
Another far fetched cause could be some defects in the strings.
Good luck Walter, sounds like you got a strange one!

Wade

_________________
Wade
Nashua, NH
http://www.wadefx.com

I think what Wade ment saddle could be over or under comensated or for that mater improperly intonated, since Walter stated that the distance from nut to 12th and nut to nominal saddle location checked out.MichaelP39001.5396527778

I've built two 13 fretters recently and they play perfectly, as long as the nut,to 12th fret, to saddle measurements are accurate....oh yeah, and all those in between.

Greg

_________________
Gwaltney Guitars

Walter, I guess I'm confused as to what the actual problem is. Strange tuning problems? From what I understand from your first post, I think Wade might be on to something with bad strings. In my mind, it makes no sense why you would have to change capo position to play in tune.
Can you elaborate on what is happening?

This is a question from way out in left field, but is the neck square to the bridge? If not, that could throw everything off.

Hi Paul,
By using the capo to be able to play normally, I mean that if you place the capo on the 1st fret you can play a G, E, C, etc, etc. If you try and play those same chords without the capo you get a bunch of weird sounds. Those chords are not normal at all. In other words the G without the capo does not sound like a G. The same goes for the other chords. Now if you place the capo up to say the 5th fret for example, Then you can play chords that sound like normal chords.
Am I making sense?
thanks. walter

[QUOTE=WalterK] Now if you place the capo up to say the 5th fret for example, Then you can play chords that sound like normal chords.
Am I making sense?
thanks. walter[/QUOTE]

I would try to figure out what the scale is supposed to be and then use a fret rule to check the fret location. From what you have just described, it sounds like the nut may not be in the right place or maybe the strings are not resting on the right (fingerboard) edge of the nut. In other words, if the nut slots are sloped towards the fingerboard the string note might be stoping at the back edge of the nut instead of the front of the nut. Make sense? And that would explain why things work when you put on a capo.John How39001.5819097222

_________________
Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

Walter, so what you are saying is that if you capo (anywhere on the fretboard) it plays ok, but not if you play without a capo? If so, here are my .02 worth.
What John How said. The nut slots should slant back at the angle of the headstock so the leading edge (that that touches the fingerboard) is the highest, thus making sure that is where the string crosses. If the slots are angled the opposite way even just a little, your compensation could be off by the width of the nut. 1/4" is HUGE when you are talking compensation.
The other though is a long shot but here it goes. The builder might have taken too much material off the nut end of the fingerboard. This would make it play out of tune when in open tuning but wouldn't be an issue when capoed.

Walter,

It could also be that the first couple of frets are too low compared with the others and so fretted notes on those chords for the first two frets are actually being fretted by higher frets. This would give weird sounding chords in the open position and OK ones capoed from the second fret upwards.

_________________
Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

THANKS JOHN AND EVERYONE ELSE FOR YOUR HELP.
I'LL PLAY AROUND WITH IT AND I'LL GET BACK WITH ALL OF YOU.
YOU HAVE ALL BEEN HELPFUL,
WALTER

I bet it's something strange about the nut, like it's in backwards or the first frets are worn bad like Dave said.
In any event, please let us know what you find Walter.

_________________
Wade
Nashua, NH
http://www.wadefx.com

Curious if this has always been the case with this guitar.

_________________
Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.