Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello,

I have a five string fretless, also mentioned in the neck delam post.

Action at the nut is very low, .018". Action at the 12th fret, 17" from nut is .100" for all strings. I also have a compound radius on my finger board, it goes from 12" to 20". I have very little relief in my neck. When I built this guitar I figured the tension of the strings would bend the neck so made the fingerboard straight, but the tension doesn't do much to that 7 piece maple/bubinga neck. I know I could straighten the neck with the truss rod tightened to get the back bow but it plays great with almost no relief so whatever.

Hope this helps.

I don't know exactly how far off the fingerboard my fretless strings are at the nut, but it's not much at all - I'd guess .010" or less. You don't need or want much!

A friend had bought a Michael Kelly 5-string fretless acoustic bass guitar, and asked me to set it up for him. The bass had been built with the same nut that they use for fretted basses, and the strings were at least .050" off the fingerboard at the nut. The intonation was way off as a result. Bringing the strings down to approximately business-card-thickness above the fingerboard at the nut fixed it right up.

Bruce Sexauer is a luthier in Northern California who specializes in the repair and setup of upright basses. At the Grass Valley Bluegrass Festival I observed as he set up a couple of uprights for customers, and he set them up the same way I set up my fretless basses - almost no clearance between the strings and fingerboard at the nut. I set up my electric uprights this way too.

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---Steve