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PostPosted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 11:14 pm 
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First name: colin
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Can anyone tell me, would lines projected from the fret slots of a multi-scale fretboard intersect a common point?
i.e., are they literally "fan" frets?

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.


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PostPosted: Mon Mar 11, 2013 11:23 pm 
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Yes, eventually I believe they would.

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 12:17 am 
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This guy builds some pretty out there guitars. Solid bodies, 6, 7, 8 strings etc. He uses fan frets on quite a few and would probably know the answer.
http://www.facebook.com/EtherialGuitars?fref=ts

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PostPosted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 12:34 am 
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My instinct says no... maybe if the fingerboard was constant width, but even then the intersection points might just form a scale type pattern along the line of the perpendicular fret. But I'd have to run the equations to verify. In any case, the intersection points would be too far out for any practical use, except maybe on extreme difference fans, which, IMO, are of impractical use to the player :lol:


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 11:35 am 
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Rough calcs -
Scale lengths 26"/25",
Width at nut (sorry for turning metric) 46mm,
Perpendicular fret at 12th gives slope of 1st fret (say 13 mm in 46mm) about 0.28,
(back to imperial ) 12.5" (to 12th fret)
Distance out to intersection of Fret 1 line projected with 12th fret line projected = 12.5 X (1/0.28) = around 45 inches.
Sounds useable to me?
Im not saying all the points will intersect at a common point, may well be they form a "scale type" pattern along the line of the perpendicular fret as you say, or a curve
I was just wondering if anyone knew - maybe a CAD whiz??

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.


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PostPosted: Tue Mar 12, 2013 12:14 pm 
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I think that the short answer is....maybe. I'm working on a model of a multiscale fretboard and extended the fret lines just to see what happens and...at least with my model they don't radiate from a common point.

I calculate my bass and treble scales along the string path, which is of course angled, and then connect the dots for the fret slot.

For giggles, I modified the model to have the width at the nut, saddle and join fret be the same and they still didn't meet at a single point. Some slots did but not all of them.


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 13, 2013 11:34 am 
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Andy, thanks for that, much appreciated.
Bit of a shame, I could feel a jig coming on, but if it doesn't get the pig clean, no point.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.


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PostPosted: Wed Mar 13, 2013 1:24 pm 
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There was a very long discussion on this topic on the mimf a few years back. I think the conclusion was that you can't have the points converge and build a guitar that's playable, and that the Novak patent (now expired) was therefore irrelevant to folks building a fanned fret guitar, as following it would not result in a playable instrument.


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PostPosted: Mon Mar 18, 2013 2:16 am 
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The answer is no, they do not,
if you use tapering fretboard and outer string paths
as lines to divide for the scales, as I think you should.

Here is a picture I made few years ago to demonstrate the thing
for myself, I think it is quite pretty!

http://www.jarnovesa.com/images/multiscale1.jpg


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