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HI im new here and pardon my bad english writing.

I got in a discussion with another luthier.
he says that you always have to make your neck/frettboard with a fallaway from 12 frett to avoid buzzing and to have a lower string action.

i belive that you then will have a intonation problem  from 12 frett  and down to brigde, becuse you then stretch the string longer and get a higer pitch when you push it down.

any opinions on that anyone ??

A slight drop off is fine ..say 10-15 thou from the neck joint to the 20th fret. But if its flat, it will be fine also .. it just cant rise or you will certainly have issues.

For where the overwhelming maj of players play on the neck, you need some relief only maxxing around 5-7 fret.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Welcome to the OLF, Bjorn!

Are we talking Classical or Steel String with this other luthier?  Can't say I'd have the answer either way, but the more info. people have, the better answers you'll get around here.

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Waddy

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Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Hi
the luthier is building all he's guitars whit fallaway, electric and acoustic
so its a generall theoretical question.

i only do fallaway on guitars when i repair and i got a acoustic guitar on my bench, that have drywood problem at the neckjoint or if the body have a problem whit the top. ( it can be extremly dry in Norway at wintertime down to 7% air moist and summer almost tropical)

Electric and steel sting need a back angle on the neck because the high sting tension 140-160# there about will bull the peghead end of the neck up raising the nuts position. About 1.5deg back angel accounts for most of the necks cantilever displacement. Truss rod controls only the middle of the neck between the nut and neck joint so the back angle is needed to account for the upward pull of the strings on the peghead.

Then there is neck relief at the 8 or 9th fret. This may be what you are speaking of.

It is common to add .008-.012 dip in the neck with the apex at about the 8th fret. this is done to avoid buzzes in the middle of the fretboard This is not carved into the fretboard or neck but induced using the truss rod most commonly.

You called it neck falloff so I assumed you ment the neck set angle or back angle of the neck. But incase I miss read your post I thought I would cover both.

I think of all I need to right later

This does not necessarily relate to nylon sting guitar because they have such low string tension as compared to steel string guitars.

On a steel string guitar, you have the luxury of dialing in a little relief using the truss rod, after everything has been leveled to dead flatness. I make mine perfectly flat under tension, and then put relief in using the truss rod if desired.

Classical guitar is another beast entirely. There, you don't have enough tension to put in any relief to start with, plus you want to allow quite a bit more room for the lower strings to vibrate. Thus, after leveling the fretboard, most people sand extra relief into the fretboard on the bass side, maxed around the 7-9th fret or so. This is the most challenging part of setup on the classical guitar, as it gives you a fret leveling and dressing job that is not referenced to a flat surface, ever. But I'm getting used to it - I'm starting to love building the classical guitars.

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

ups wrong buton
thanks for good replys

well me and this luthier are agre about one thing, that you have to have a relif at 7 to 9 frett thats normal,
but he say you have to make a falloff from the 12frett to get lower string action and avoyd buzz from 12 frett up to 24 frett on any type of guitar.
i am not talking about the neck set angle.
i never made falloff on a guitar or had a problem with this on any of my guitars that i build. and i have low string action as well.
i just belive that you will have a intonation problem from the 12 frett and up.

i just dont see the point of makeing a falloff if you build your guitar the normal way with a straigth neck and use good wood and good skils.
i dont see any falloff on Martins, Taylor, Tyler, Gibson or Fenders and other normaly good guitars.
im i wrong????
 is there any one here that build guitars with falloff???

Bjorn,
I do build with some fallaway. But I'm trying to find out how to stop it. It has kind of come natural on my guitars and I'm not sure why. It should be perfectly fine for the neck extension area to be perfectly level with the rest of the neck. As long as there is no rise. If there was a rise you'd have to pull some frets and level it out.
I think a lot of builders like a very tiny amount of fallaway just to guarantee that there is no rise whatsoever.
You're right, if the fingerboard extension is perfectly level the intonation would be better. Although, if the fallaway was so little it was barely noticeable, I don't think it would make much difference on your intonation.

Fallaway or dropoff is necessary in order to get the lowest action when strings are to be bent, as most electric players do. It is especially needed with light gauge strings and above the 12th fret, because the that is where movement of the string will be greatest when bending up a note, and because the frets are closer together there. The crown of the board makes a bent string move downward relative to where it crosses the next couple of frets, and it will fret out against them if the action is low. In practice, the dropoff only needs to be in the center of the board, because that is where the bent string will cross the frets that cause it to fret out.

Another reason to use dropoff is to provide relief for notes playedin the middle portion of the neck (around frets 3-8), because their string excursion is greatest in the area of the board that is 12 frets higher than the fretted note. In practice, this relief can be very slight, since string excursion diminishes as you go up the neck.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Howard,

If the neck is adjusted straight and you lay a straight edge on it, how much dropoff should measure between the edge and the center of say the 20 fret?

I'd say around 5 thousandths of an inch from fret 12 to fret 20 is all you need (an acoustic guitar with perfectly level frets usually plays just fine; we are talking about a tweak here).   I go for more on electrics.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.