Zero Frets

[SpareRibs]

Hello,
Is there a practical way to fit an existing neck with a zero fret ? I have read on another forum that they were not pursued by American guitar makers because of their association with cheaper import guitars.

[olddawg]

Hello,
Is there a practical way to fit an existing neck with a zero fret ? I have read on another forum that they were not pursued by American guitar makers because of their association with cheaper import guitars.

Funny you should mention this. I was discussing this with a luthier builder that refretted one of my Strats last week and we were having trouble with the nut kinking. I said I loved zero frets on decent guitars. I have a Jay Tursner Resophonic that I love and paid $100 for. It has a zero fret. My friend said the only quality American made guitars he could think of that used them were Mosrites. It was my contention that a zero fret would eliminate a lot of setup problems and you could use any string guage. He said what you said. There is a stigma and people associate the zero fret with cheap guitars.

[Chuck H]

The zero fret always seemed like a good idea to me. But that hardly matters. And FWIW I haven't found the need to implement one on a guitar that was not made that way. If I wanted to add one I would simply add a piece of wood and use the seem as a fret slot marker. Obviously you would need to use a narrower nut on most models. The details of any lutherie techniques would be specific to the instrument.

[Mick Bailey]

I'd do what Chuck H suggests. Make sure the slot isn't too tight - remember there's constant string pressure, so it doesn't need to be as tight as the rest. A zero fret wears a notch with string bending because you haven't got the sides of the nut to prevent lateral string movement and it's a good idea to make it easily replaceable.

Steinberger and Klein use zero frets - as necessitated by the design.

[Chuck H]

If you want the zero fret to mimic the original string length you can't use the end of the finger board as one side of the fret slot. You'd need to glue a piece of wood in place and then saw a new slot right on that joint. Removing equal material from the new piece of wood and the fingerboard so that the crown of the fret actually matches with where the strings bridged over the nut originally. Think it's not that critical? Move the nut on any guitar back 1/64 inch from the first fret and try tuning it! Much more critical on the nut end than the bridge end because an incorrect interval here will skew all the intervals by a greater degree than it would at the bridge.

If you're real slick you could sand the original nut on the headstock side an amount equal to the wood you added, deepen the slots a tad and reuse it. Most guitars wouldn't offer much depth to operate within but I think some care and skill could make it work. Something like a standard strat nut would force you into filling the nut slot and cutting a new one just behind it.

[Paleo Pete]

I had an Epiphone acoustic years ago with a zero fret, I've never understood why they all aren't built that way. Too expensive to put another 10 bucks into the build I guess.

Never thought about trying to add one, seems like it could be done, but it would be tedious. The main problem I see is getting the slot int he right place and strong enough to hold. If you glue an extra piece of wood in place then slot it, you still have a weak spot holding the zero fret in place. Might work, but I don't think I would try it.

[J M Fahey]

You can't add a zero fret to a guitar which does not have one from factory, because you are varying string length and you will never ever be able to tune it.

Now if you replace a plastic/bone nut with a metallic piece of fret wire, and call it "zero fret" , please be my guest.

[Mick Bailey]

Anyone played a Microfrets guitar with an adjustable nut?

[Archie Speed]

There's this: ZerO Glide
I installed one on an Ibanez 12 string electric & it worked as advertised. No intonation issues & no owner complaints. Not sure how it would hold up in a harsher environment of string bends etc. Just a thought.

[SpareRibs]

Hello,
Thanks Archie, I saw the Zero glide while checking for information about adding a zero fret to a standard cut neck. The concept looks like something that could be accomplished with just an existing nut and a piece of fret wire. I will look into it further.
My thought about it, is once properly setup the string height problem with fret buzz and all of that would be over for as long as the rest of the frets last.

[Steve A.]

There's this: ZerO Glide
I installed one on an Ibanez 12 string electric & it worked as advertised. No intonation issues & no owner complaints. Not sure how it would hold up in a harsher environment of string bends etc. Just a thought.

Looks interesting! It uses an offset crown on the zero fret to keep intonation correct with a slotted bone nut behind the zero fret to keep the strings centered.
BTW your zero fret has to be higher than your first fret and this kit includes 3 frets of different heights.

The $30/kit sounds reasonable but NOT the $8 s/h charge since it is a very small unbreakable item that could be via USPS in a padded envelope for a couple bucks. Just my opinion but in 2015 it would work better to sell the kits for $35 and include free s/h for the 48 states. (Downside to that is that if someone ordered several kits but additional kits could be priced at $30 as a quantity discount.)

The idea of a web-only seller charging for handling does not fly with me- it is part of their job to package the item and have it shipped and should be included in the sell price. As for shipping charges that should reimburse their costs and not be a revenue source. (The biggest offenders are those old school mail order houses with the ads in some magazines and in the Parade section of the Sunday Paper. They print the price of the item itself in BIG letters while the outrageous s/h charge is only listed in small print in the order form at the bottom of the page. They need to get with the times and at least include a QR bar code so that smartphone users can go directly to the item on the website without having to type anything in.)

So much for my rant of the day...

Steve A.

[Archie Speed]

Hello,
Thanks Archie, I saw the Zero glide while checking for information about adding a zero fret to a standard cut neck. The concept looks like something that could be accomplished with just an existing nut and a piece of fret wire. I will look into it further.
My thought about it, is once properly setup the string height problem with fret buzz and all of that would be over for as long as the rest of the frets last.

Steve A. noted that this is an offset crown on the zero fret. It is designed to sit in the existing nut slot. Maintains factory scale length. You could certainly modify a nut yourself & add fret wire. If you are a wiz at nut fabrication, sure. Fun experiment...but I'd just drop the $38 & done.

I had to laugh at Steve's s/h comment. I can get an Ampeg BA-110 shipped free, but I gotta pay $8 USD s/h on a nut. Crazy. But there it is.