Zero Fret Guitar?

[Mick Bailey]

strings do not necessarily come straight off of either a nut nor zero fret in a perfectly straight direction. There is a bit of a curve where the string is biased up and away from being directly even with the nut, zero fret, or fret.

That's probably why my Steinberger gets away with being levelled on the zero fret. You can see when a guitar string is pressed the leading edge raises slightly, particularly on the thicker strings. Same thing on the zero fret - the break angle probably compensates a little and marginally increases the effective height.

I've had a lot of development issues with a guitar sitar bridge because of the same reason - for a given tension the string has a minimum bend radius at its takeoff point and doesn't come off straight, so this has to be built into the design of the jawari profile (which is different for each string). That few thou or less makes a huge difference to the sound.

[Paleo Pete]

For fret leveling I use a 14" wood plane with blade removed and a strip of sandpaper taped to it, and a straight smooth file with the tang bent for finishing up. Bending the tang gets it out of the way and lets you use it as a handle much easier. I wouldn't touch a guitar neck with a whet stone...I guess it would work, but only a fine grit one and I'd have to be very sure it's straight. The wood plane works great, it's a very old one and nice and straight, being 14" long it covers plenty frets to make sure everything is flat, all I do is smooth it with the file. I can do the whole thing with sandpaper, I have everything up to 1500 and 2000 grit, but 400 would be the max I need for frets, maybe 600. The file works well for smoothing though and if you know how to use one you can get almost a mirror finish with it.

[Rick Turner]

I am that very same Rick Turner...guilty as charged!

[dumbassbob]

I am that very same Rick Turner...guilty as charged!

Awesome guitars you make...

[voxeylady]

The only reason for a nut is to keep the string spacing correct, the zero fret is higher than the other frets and acts as a nut.


I read that Brian May removed the zero fret on his red special for a few years in the 80s or early 90s and then later put it back. Wouldn't that have drastically ruined his intonation if zero fret had been the starting point for his strings?

[Chuck H]

Absolutely. Something was left out of the information. If the zero fret were simply "removed" the scale from the nut to the first fret would be way off. So there must have been more to it than that. We just don't know what.

[Chuck H]

While we're on the subject...

Why should the zero fret be specific in it's plane as compared to the other frets??? Why shouldn't it be leveled along with all the other frets? I mean, if the first and second frets sound good and play well then a zero fret is no different than a capo in the first position. I always thought the idea of a zero fret was exactly that. The guitar plays the same on the open strings as the fretted strings. I'm expecting an argument about how open strings vibrate more widely due to a lack of hand pressure damping or some such I guess. My logical mind tells me the concept of the zero fret is moot if it needs special attention.

[voxeylady]

Gonna have to agree with all of that Chuck. I also would have to imagine it would give it a different sound like your expected argu'ers. But I wouldn't make a big stink about it. Maybe Brians was just for decoration and didn't actually function in the traditional way?