fret slot spacing

[mandolinplucker]

To preface my question. In general woodworking,if you have a long board that you want to cut into 6" pieces, if you mark it off every 6" and cut it they will not all come out exactly the same due to the width of kerf and the amount of line you cut or leave . The siminoff plans gives the spacing. The question is- what is the most accurate. To measure from the nut and cut the first slot,then add the second measurement to the first,then measure from the nut and cut.Then add the third measurement to the sum of the first two,ect. Or do you measure from the nut to the first slot and cut ,then measure from the cut to the next fret slot,ect.

[labraid]

Mark all fret positions including nut first, then cut all in the same way. I.e., cut to the left of each line if you're going to cut to the left of any one line, or split em (my fav), or to the right of the mark, etc.. Each mark should have an absolute place on the fretboard whether it be 138.0mm or what have you, try not to work in adding small numbers...

[Antlurz]

For the sake of accuracy, all your figures should be taken from the face of the nut. If you measure one to the next, any errors, regardless of how small or large will be cumulative, and by the time you get to the end, the grand total of them *could* add up significantly on a neck with lots of frets.

For instance, say .003" is your average error. On a twenty nine fret board, if all of those errors were on the long side, your error at the end could be about a tenth of an inch. That is a LOT.

Ron

[arbarnhart]

Use a fret calculator (I downloaded fret calc) and I suggest using metric because it is easier to be sure you are measuring properly. As others said, measure from the nut for each fret. It's really a derived distance bcause the fret to the bridge and the tension is what really determines the pitch, and those fators get tweaked slightly due to action. So it is never really exact, but you do want to eliminate all the additional slop.