The blues guitar and a jig for grinding grip boards and ribbons

One of the many important details on a guitar is what is called relief. It is a name for the "banana bend" on the fretboard that you often have between the 1st and 12th band (lower in the middle). With a little relief, you can adjust the strings down more before the strings start to rattle. There are different schools, but for me a completely straight neck or a very small relief is the best. The problem with a neck without a drawbar, as in all GammelGura, is that you can not adjust the relief except when you grind the fretboard and grind the tops of the straps. When you string on, the neck bends a little by itself from the string pull and you get a relief automatically if you do not compensate by grinding the neck / straps in a negative bend before. Depending on how stiff the neck is, the automatic relief will be differently powerful.

Why not a drawbar? Yes, it is a killer and poses as much trouble as it solves. If sound becomes better without dead weight in the form of metal in the neck, a drawbar is also not necessary on a short parlor neck if it is reinforced with a carbon fiber rod.

To get a close look at the relief on GammelGura, I use a jig. Especially good when it is a soft neck that gets an automatic relief that is a little too big. The jig is used in two sessions, one to sharpen the fretboard and one to crown the straps. On both occasions, the guitar is tensioned in the jig with the strings on and tensioned. The guitar and neck are "frozen" in their position in the jig and the fingerboard and straps are ground completely flat.

Little pictures of the "blues guitar" which has a soft neck. The guitar is strung up with a temporarily adjusted upper saddle and suitable drills as stable legs. The 1st and 12th bands are real bands, the others are only there to fill in the band grooves.

   

The jig can be "tilted" to get the guitar in play position before the neck is fixed. Gravity matters, especially when it comes to heavy electric guitars or basses. Maybe a little premium on light GammelGuror. The guitar is fastened with clamps, the neck is raised with three adjustable supports. The head is twisted by the string pull and must be wedged at the back and held by a strap so as not to spring back when the strings are removed. You want everything to be in the same position as when the strings are on.

  

With the strings and the upper saddle of the plane, the gripping board is cut with an absolutely straight steel profile with a self-adhesive sandpaper. Also tightens the head with forceps so that everything is stable. When the grip board is completely flat and the guitar is detached from the jig's iron grip, you have a grip board that has a negative relief at rest but which becomes straight when you tighten it up!

 

Then just strap on the right straps in the usual way. It is important that the band grooves are not too tight for the band otherwise you will get more back bend on the neck with than without a band.

The procedure is repeated in session two. The guitar is fastened to the jig with tuned strings to level the tops of the bands. Since the fretboard should be in the nearest plane, not much grinding of the strap rods is needed. As the guitar is nicely tapped, I also do the rest of the work, round the flat-sharpened tops and polish the bands.

 

On this, the fretboard was not completely straight with tensioned strings, I could barely squeeze in the thinnest blade size of 0.05 mm under my straight ruler on the 6th band. Perfect 🙂

Has vibrated in it, after two days it "happened" and the one that was a little stiff and stiff in the sound suddenly got a higher volume and good tone. The extra large sound hole gives more treble than normal, uses buffalo horns in the upper saddle and should also use it in the stable leg to dampen the worst "jingle". Is most surprised by the volume, maybe the big sound hole means that more volume ends up in the ear of the player? This will be sent down to Östervåla for those who want to audition and preferably buy it!

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