Hey again everybody.
I'm back, with another handy instructable if you're in the mood of cutting up your guitar even more.
This time I will explain how I scalloped my fretboard, and how you can too.
Scalloped fretboards are not very common these days, but have been around of hundreds of years (like the veena, an indian instrument with a mad crazy scalloped fretboard) Recently scalloped fretboards have been introduced to the world of electric guitars through plays such as Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple, and Yngwie Malmsteen. However, they both use full neck scalloped guitars, and this instructable is for a standard scallop, meaning frets 14-21 are scalloped.
So what exactly are scalloped frets? Scalloping a fretboard is when you remove wood from the fretboard so that when the guitar is played, the fingers only contact the string, not the wood underneath, eliminating massive amounts of friction. It is much easier to bend strings with a scalloped guitar, and many guitarists do claim that scalloped fretboards allow you to play faster, as minimal contact with the string is needed (though I have not experienced this, nor have other guitarists I have talked to).
DISCLAIMER: I am not responsible for any harm that may come to you or your guitar. You can scallop you guitar beautifully with absolutely no previous experience as a luthier. Minimal experience with wood is suggested (we've all taken shop one time in school).
Take you time and be patient.
You might want to do this on that old guitar sitting in your garage rather than your brand new guitar
Thank you to everybody who voted in the Art of Sound contest!
I'm back, with another handy instructable if you're in the mood of cutting up your guitar even more.
This time I will explain how I scalloped my fretboard, and how you can too.
Scalloped fretboards are not very common these days, but have been around of hundreds of years (like the veena, an indian instrument with a mad crazy scalloped fretboard) Recently scalloped fretboards have been introduced to the world of electric guitars through plays such as Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple, and Yngwie Malmsteen. However, they both use full neck scalloped guitars, and this instructable is for a standard scallop, meaning frets 14-21 are scalloped.
So what exactly are scalloped frets? Scalloping a fretboard is when you remove wood from the fretboard so that when the guitar is played, the fingers only contact the string, not the wood underneath, eliminating massive amounts of friction. It is much easier to bend strings with a scalloped guitar, and many guitarists do claim that scalloped fretboards allow you to play faster, as minimal contact with the string is needed (though I have not experienced this, nor have other guitarists I have talked to).
DISCLAIMER: I am not responsible for any harm that may come to you or your guitar. You can scallop you guitar beautifully with absolutely no previous experience as a luthier. Minimal experience with wood is suggested (we've all taken shop one time in school).
Take you time and be patient.
You might want to do this on that old guitar sitting in your garage rather than your brand new guitar
Thank you to everybody who voted in the Art of Sound contest!
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Signing UpStep 1: Materials
-A guitar
-Some duct tape, or masking tape
-A rounded metal file (meaning its round all around) Mine was about 5/16" in diameter at the widest section.
-Murphy Oil (any wood cleaner can do I think)
-A toothbrush
-Sandpaper of many variates of fine grit.
-Dremel with a buffing wheel attachment, or a buffing wheel of some sorts. (A rag can work too)
-Screwdriver
-Wire clippers
-New guitar strings
-Some duct tape, or masking tape
-A rounded metal file (meaning its round all around) Mine was about 5/16" in diameter at the widest section.
-Murphy Oil (any wood cleaner can do I think)
-A toothbrush
-Sandpaper of many variates of fine grit.
-Dremel with a buffing wheel attachment, or a buffing wheel of some sorts. (A rag can work too)
-Screwdriver
-Wire clippers
-New guitar strings
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I've constructed 5 guitars from from lumber in addition to the maintenance I've performed, including several re-frets and one scallop job on several others.
This can be very dangerous to the integrity of your guitar neck. Aside from the potential damage to your frets, you're taking away the stability of the neck.
- frets:
I'm surprised you didn't damage your frets. The author did a very nice job here but remember, even if you don't gouge up your frets, you're pulling wood away from the sides of the fret slots. I've seen lower-quality fret boards where the wood was over dried [probably low in natural oils] and it became quite brittle during a re-fret. One import Charvel in particular [beautiful neck geometry] flaked off quite a bit of rosewood when I was pulling frets.
If you're going to do this, at the very least mask off your frets.
Be very careful and deliberate when filing or grinding down fretboard and keep an eye on the taped frets for any signs you're tearing up the tape.
- Neck stability:
There are two main reason why your neck stays straight. You probably have a truss rod down the middle which can be adjusted to create tension to counteract the force caused by the strings. A typical set of guitar strings will pull about 65lbs, more in some tunings and more with heavier strings.
The other thing keeping a neck like this straight is the lamination of the rosewood and the maple. Like plywood, it's stronger than a simple board. It's also no coincidence that luthers typically pick different woods for the neck and fretboard. Fretboards are usually constructed of harder woods than necks.. the neck is less likely to bow forward because of this [a forward bow requires compression of the harder wood].
So, what happens when you start removing mass from the fretboard? You're decreasing the effectiveness of laminating the fretboard to the neck by removing fretboard mass. This isn't such a big deal over the neck heal [fret 16+ in this instructable example] but it'll be more pronounced in the more distal range of the neck.
My recommendations:
- Be VERY careful unless you're also comfortable replacing damaged frets.
- Be VERY careful because you're more likely to damage the fretboard if you have to refret a scalloped neck.
- Don't over-do the scallop. The reason to scallop is to pull the fretboard away from the strings so your fingers don't drag on the board. You don't need to dig out more than necessary for this. - scalloping, especially on wider spaces [lower frets] will cause you to deflect the string more when you push too hard and it'll affect your pitch. It'll do it for the same reason that a high nut will mess up the intonation [more on the lower frets than upper].
- A partial scallop will leave more neck mass, which is good. But, it also creates an uneven amount of mass [rigidity] down the neck. This isn't so bad if you keep the scallop to the higher frets since necks tend to bow around the middle [bend a long stick an see where it arcs the most]. The truss rod will also, for the same reason, provide the most effect in the middle [9th-ish]. What you don't want to do is make the neck more rigid at one end than the other because the truss rod force will have a uniform grade from the middle to the ends and you want your neck to have the same. If you want to scallop farther down than 15.. you might want to make the scallop less shallow as you get to each larger fret span.
- You can't predict how deep the fret markers will be. If they're phenolic plastic, they'll probably be thicker than a mother of pearl marker will be. If you want to scallop deep.. be increasingly mindful of this as you go down. Right before you sand through them, they should start to get translucent. If you've MoP markers, you probably won't be able to go as deep as the neck shown here.
- A tip on doing it.. Get a set of dowel rods of increasing diameter and wrap them in sand paper. Not only can you dial in the arc for the scallop better, you get to change your grit and even turn the rods to sand with the grain when you're doing the finishing sandings.
just did it to my Artcore AF85 an I gotta say, after a couple of days getting used to it, I can freaking SHRED riffs faster than ever, with crystal clarity... (went all the way down to the 4th fret).
Thank you so much for allowing me to take my playing to a whole other level!
I've printed this 'ible and taken it and my Ibanez to my axe-smith...he'll be doing the mod on my other rigs for me, and possibly offering it to his other clients.
5 stars...all the way...good job!
I'm glad the mod worked out for you. One note though, I'm not a full blown luthier though (just a DIY'er who plays guitar), so I didn't mention how to properly finish and treat the wood after you file it. I'm sure your axe-smith (awesome word btw) will know what to do though.
Rock on my friend!
To finish mine out, I just re-sealed the rosewood with a nice wood conditioner, followed by two coats of Minwax ultra poly with a run of 1000 grit between and after. Then I rubbed the whole board down with some super hard beeswax before I restrung it....
Plays like a rocket...xD
But, seriously man, other than beating on my guitars every day for the past 10 years, nothing has ever improved my game as much as this did.
Thanks a bunch.
i have an ibanez S
i dont think it has that
Oh, well- life goes on!
Again, great job!