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While I've been waiting for the finish on my 000 to cure enough to level/buff out, I've been working on another project that might be interesting to somebody.

Back in the 80's, I got some nice mahogany from Walter Lipton with the idea of building a mahogany topped L-00 guitar. I've finally gotten around to doing it. The guitar combines features of my 3 favorite L-00s that I've played. A buddy of mine in Johnson City has an L-00 with a mahogany top that just sounds great. Another buddy of mine in Galax has an L-00 from 1932 with the cantilevered neck/raised fingerboard. I always liked that model. And an L-00 that I had for years (and now my wife's cousin has it) had been converted by banjo great Fred Van Eps to use one of his patent applied for (but apparently never granted) flush fret, scalloped fretboard. Best playing guitar I ever owned, sounded great too.

Here's what it's looking like so far--dry fit of the still square neck to the not yet routed for bindings body.

I've built several banjos with this type of board, but they have flat fingerboards. This one (12 inch radius) was a bit more challenging, but came out pretty good for a first shot I think. I got lucky with that yellow stripe in the ebony going down the middle of the fretboard--kind of has that old Cromwell vibe to it. The neck is adjustable to be able to tweek the action without removing the neck or replacing the saddle.

Anyway, I'll post more pictures after I get some more work done.


Dave

Is that fingerboard radiused, or flat?

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

It's radiused--12"

Dave, when you play a fingerboard like that do you push the string down to the fingerboard or just get really good at using just enough pressure to fret the note?
Nice job by the way.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

I had an old lute bodied guitar that had a scalloped flush fretted flat fingerboard. Fred may have been trying to patent something that has been around for awhile.
It looks like you are coming right along on the the mahogany bodied guitar. The fingerboard may not be to everyone's liking, but then the guitar is not for everyone. I hope it is as nice as you remember it being.

Jim--you just push the string to the flush fret--which is essentially pushing down to the fingerboard, but not down to the bottom of the scallops. It really doesn't take any special precautions about amount of finger pressure--it's not used like the Malmsteen type scalloped boards. It feels like playing a fretless, but doesn't take any special effort to play in tune. The flush fret/scalloped board was originally patented in the 1890s by Hobart Middlebrooke out of Rock Rapids, Iowa, and I suspect this patent is probably why Van Eps didn't get one. I have a rather large collection of Middlebrooke's "Lion Brand" banjos--very strange instruments but they all play great. Middlebrooke's scallops weren't symmetrical--they had a sort of ramp moving towards the fret, and then a drop off after the fret. They are very smooth sliding up the board, but bumpy sliding down. Van Eps' are very smooth both directions.

Dave

Thanks for explanation Dave.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

There are certainly some old Asian and African instruments with scalloped fingerboards that essentially form "frets" even though there aren't any metal bars at the peaks of the scallops. The Middlebrooke patent is the only patent I've seen, but as you say, the idea must have been around for quite a while.

Dave

Dave

Are you going to tell us how you did it? Inquiring minds . . . .

Ed

Fred Van Eps used a milling machine for his boards from all appearances. I do the same for roughing out the scallops and cutting fret slots, except I modeled it in Rhino CAD and then CNC'd it. Still quite a bit of handwork to blend the very hard stainless steel fret wire into the scalloped ebony, but CNC is responsible for the bulk of it.

I've used CNC for my conventional fretboards for years, since it's easy to cut different scales, have built in faux binding, etc. For a short while, I was doing some production non-custom banjos, and used the CNC to cut and rout my inlays. It was good for production, but took a lot of the fun out of the whole process so I stopped doing it.

Dave

Hi Dave, I'm currently working on an old lute guitar with some missing frets. Just curious as to where you get the fret material. The frets on this lute guitar are 3/64 inch in width.





If you could give a contact for the fret wire it would be much appreciated.

Michael

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Michael Lloyd

“I was born to ignorance, yes, and lesser poverties ...
I was born to privilege that I did not see ... I didn’t know it, but my way was paved” – John Gorka

Michael,

I'm using .05x.05 square stainless steel wire from McMaster Carr. They carry other sizes as well. I've used the .05x.10 wire too, but since I'm just looking at a wear-resistant surface for frets, it seemed unnecessary to use wire that deep.

I use stainless instead of regular nickel silver fret wire since I'm using steel strings and don't want to have to deal with divots from wear up the pike.

Dave

Thanks Dave,

Ordered and on its way. Much appreciated!

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Michael Lloyd

“I was born to ignorance, yes, and lesser poverties ...
I was born to privilege that I did not see ... I didn’t know it, but my way was paved” – John Gorka

Since I got the 000 wrapped up, I'm back to work on the L-00. It's ready to sand/finish at this point. This is how it looks right now. Unfortunately, it's also how my bench looks right now--my "clean" bench still has the 000 on it for some final setup tweeks.