My first stringéd creation.

That's pretty neat. A version of a lap steel.

I would recommend a brush-on poly like Varathane, Spar Urethane, or the Minwax versions. With a foam brush, you can get a good level surface and once it hardens up, you can sand, polish and buff like any of the other finishes, right up to a mirror reflection.

Don't forget to sign the headstock before you put the clearcoat on!

 

Hard to explain properly, we went thru this once before and someone took what I said and put up a nice computer graphic of it. Essentially, the first "fret" is 1/18 of the total scale lenth from the nut. This means 1.25" for you, for the first fret. Then the second is 1/18 of the remaining lenth, etc etc. For the sencond "fret", take the 22.5 and subtract your 1.25 of the first, leaving 21.25. Now devide that by 18 for the second fret, at 1.18" from the first. Subtract 1.18 from 21.25, divide THAT number by 18 and so on, and so on, etc etc, ad nauseum.

HTH,

Lee

 

Among the other things it does, the spreadsheet that Pilotjones assembled has JP's fret calc page in it.

Spreadsheet thread

The actual attachment is in the second last post.

The method it uses is more accurate than the on BassikLee described but from memory its a matter of fractions of a mm, so there's not much in it.

Josh D

 

StewMac Fret Calculator

 

Works great for older style instruments where the dicrepancy actually creates a small amount of compensation, like older fretted acoustic instruments.

I think the actual number is something like 17.817. Use the fretcalculators and save your head the trouble