These are some of Jay’s fretboard blanks with varying degrees of curvature from the top (closer to the nut) to the back of the fretboard (closer to the bridge). One of the nice things about building a Portland Guitar is that you are able to try out various fretboards on a neck blank to see how they feel to make sure you are getting one that’s most comfortable for you.
This is one of Jay’s inventions - quite an amazing innovative machine used to create a conical curve in the fingerboard. As you will see in the process pictures below, there are two arms that hold a steel piece that the fretboard is attached to. The arms swing on bearings (from car alternators) that are have adjustments on each to set the radius of the conical shape. There is a formula that Jay uses to adjust each arm to route the desired radius in the curvature in the fretboard.
There are a few different types of fretboards - those that are completely flat, those that have mild (but an evenly distributed curve) and those (such as the Portland Guitar) that have a conical shape. The conical shape is nice because (as you can see from the diagram below from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingerboard) the curve is more pronounce near the bottom of the fretboard (the end closest to the bridge). The conical shape makes for a smooth feeling and playing fretboard.
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This next picture shows the steel piece on the bottom of Jay’s machine where the fretboard attaches. It sits just above the router on the routing table and is manually pushed across the routing table on a guide to move the fretboard over the routing bit.
And then started to swing the fretboard over the router, slowly moving it across until the radius in the fretboard was routed. The conical shape is created due to the front arm being slightly higher than the back. In this case, the fretboard cone that I used of Jay’s was theoretically 16’ in radius.
To cut the fret slots in the fretboard, we used another template of Jay’s based on formula for a standard sized fretboard.
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As you can see from the picture below, there is a guide that locks into place at each fret that is held in place so that a router with a little circular blade can run along the guide to cut the fret slot.
It’s important to run the router slowly and evenly over the fretboard, holding it tightly against the template guide. This was nerve-wracking because you can only run the router blade across the fretboard one time for each fret slot - there’s no room for error.
Prior to installing the frets I cut the fretboard down to size (I took about ½ an inch off of each side).
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Then we dropped (and glued) the mother-of-pearl into the holes and sanded them down, being careful not to take any material off of the fretboard or change the curvature.
This is Jay, demonstrating how to set a fret into place by gently hammering it. The fret is a “T” shape - the vertical line in the “T” sits in the fret slot and the horizontal line is the fret that the string is played against.
This next photo is a picture of the frets all set into the fretboard. Once they were in place, we used a fine tip on the end of the bottle of Canoacrylate to lay a thin line of glue on each side of each fret so that the glue slipped down into the fret grooves.
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Once the glue dried we used the belt sander to sand down the ends of the frets so that they are the same width as the fretboard.
We left additional space on the fretboard (one fret length) while working on the fretboard. Once the frets were set in place, we cut off the additional wood.
This is the fretboard after installing the frets and fretboard inlay dots. Later, during the setting up process we worked the frets further to make sure that they were all even and the strings sat nicely against each fret without buzzing.This article was originally published in 2015. For updated info on our standard neck profiles, please click here: Halo Standard Neck Profiles
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The part of the guitar we come into contact with most is the neck, so it’s crucial for certain areas of the neck to be thoughtfully designed and carefully crafted to allow for maximum comfort and ease of playing.
The “perfect” neck should feel like a natural extension of your body, not a foreign object in your grips. It should be a joy to play, not a chore. Setup and string gauges aside, let’s talk about some of the key areas that influence the way our guitar necks “feel” in terms of how they’re crafted.
Many players find the Neck Profile makes the biggest impact on how a guitar’s neck feels. Halo's standard neck profile is a moderately thin, “C” shaped neck with a 16 radius and jumbo frets.
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The standard Halo neck profile is thin enough that it plays and feels very “fast”, yet thick enough that there is enough wood to grab onto and doesn’t become fatiguing to play. There are three basic groupings in terms of thicknesses:
It’s helpful to know these kinds of precise measurements when shopping around for a guitar online, or when considering a custom build. The reason is because you can’t just pick up and try out a guitar unless it’s already built and in front of you. You’ve got to have something to go by. Because a “thin” neck for one person might be a thick” neck for another person. But, a 20mm neck is a 20mm neck, end of story.
The front of the neck (fretboard) impacts the way the neck feels, but in a relatively subtle way. First, the fretboard itself is not usually flat (unless we’re talking classical guitars), but has a radius, or curvature. The fretboard radius helps the front of the neck conform to the natural curvature of our fingers (as we close our fists, our fingers curl inward) and should make the guitar more comfortable to play. A smaller radius (like 7.25”) is more curved and a larger radius (like 20”) is more flat. There are benefits and drawbacks to both:
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A smaller radius is more comfortable for playing chords, but big string bends get choked out. The smaller radius may also reduce legato and tapping speeds. A larger radius helps increase legato and tapping speeds. It also allows for big string bends without choking out. The only downside is that it might be less comfortable for playing chords.
Most guitars have a single radius that is consistent across the length of the fretboard. On the small end of the spectrum, we have something like a 7.25” radius, which can be found on some vintage Fender instruments. On the large end of the spectrum, we have something like a 30” radius, which can be found on some classical guitars that aim to be nearly flat, but have a very slight curvature. Halo fretboards are typically in the range of 16” to 20”. We use a smaller radius on our relatively narrower necks and a larger radius on our relatively wider necks. For example, our 6-string guitars typically have a 16” radius, whereas our 8-string guitars typically have a 20” radius. We find that a radius between 16” to 20” gets most of the benefits from both worlds: comfortable for chording, great for shredding/tapping and worry-free for big string bends. We also offer compound radius fretboards, which just means the fretboard has more than one radius on it (smaller radius near the nut; larger radius near the last fret).
Lastly, the size of the fret wire also makes a difference in feel. It is very subtle, but noticeable. Fret wire is available in a variety of different widths and heights. To simplify things, we'll consider three widths:
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Narrow fret wire has two main benefits. The first is that it can provide slightly better intonation over the lifetime of the instrument compared to wide fret wire. But, most people probably won't hear the difference and some simple fret maintenance would make this a moot point. Why can intonation be better with narrow wire? Because the tops of the frets should be round (not flat), . That means that when we push a string down against the fret, the string comes in to contact with the fret wire at the center of the fret wire. This is good because the center of the fret wire is where the note is supposed to intonate. But, over time, the fret wire becomes worn and instead of having a round top, it has a flat top. This means that when we push a string down against the fret, the string is no longer coming in to contact with the center of the fret wire, but somewhere off-center (nearer to the bridge). This tiny amount of distance can affect the intonation. A second, and probably more noticeable benefit, is
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