Official Luthiers Forum!

do string clamps (the type used in a tremolo system) affect the first fret at all? do i need a bigger fingerboard or whatnot? is there anything you guys could give me to as how to use them when making (yes im new at building guitars) i know they replace the nut and as for string spacing that's with the string clamps themselves so yea, i wanna know if they affect the 1st fret at all if i were to get to the point where i just need the bridge and tuners you know? Just slap em on and install the tuners and play away

i have not dealt with them much personally i tend to stay away from the fr system, but if by "affect the first fret" you mean somehow shorten the distance that was there with the original nut then the answer is no, provided that you install it correctly there should be no difference, that said if you install it and there is a difference with you are done, then you are in for a world of hurt becuase your entire fret scale is going to be out of wack and all your notes will be either flat or sharp unless you capo it or something. those nuts also require that you drill through the neck and bolt them in just in case you weren't aware, seems like a pain to me, thats why i dont mess with em.

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The front edge of the Floyd nut should be where the front edge of the normal nut would be.
The radius at the nut should be 10 to match the Floyd nut.
The radius at the END of the fretboard should be 16, so you will need a compound radius fretboard for proper action.
If you do happen to do a straight 10 radius, you can shim the individual saddles on the Floyd rose bridge to the correct heights, otherwise the middle strings will be closer to the fretboard than the outer strings due to the mis-matched geometry.
The exception would be if you happened upon an original Floyd from the 70's, which had 10 radiused saddles, but if you are purchasing a new Floyd rose (or licensed) bridge, they are designed for fretboards compound radiused 10 to 16.
I compound my fretboards on my belt sander which has a 30 inch sanding platten rather than trying to use radius blocks.
String height at the nut is extremely important, otherwise your first few frets will intonate sharp no matter what.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

thanks to the both of you, it sounds like a hassle and i don't think i will do it but another question, What do you believe to be a good string distance? i might get a blank nut and if so need to know what a good string distance is, please and thank you

Matt,

You really need to be specific. Are you asking string length or string spacing at the nut? How wide is the fretboard at the nut? What taper has the fretboard to result in what width at the 12th fret? What bridge are you using and what is the string spacing at the bridge? Are you building a guitar or fixing up an existing guitar? All of these things matter. We need to know if you want a good answer.

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

oh yea woops, i guess i would go by the string spacing on the bridge eh?

this is the bridge: http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bridges,_ta ... ridge.html

this is the nut: the nut is bone but - http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Nuts,_saddl ... _Nuts.html (gibson- style 6012-V)

my questions have been answered.. thank you guys!