a useful little tool

octavedoctor

New member
I was playing around with my new PDA on the train in a vain effort to justify the purchase of another gadget that I don't need and a came up with this little spreadsheet. It's purpose is to calculate the true scale length of a guitar based on an accurate measurement of the positions of two known frets, in this case the first and fifth, and more importantly the position of the nut.

There must have been an element of synchronicity to this because within two days I had a reason to use it when someone brought me some e-bay disaster; an ibanez that seemed to have been cobbled together from two different models with some aftermarket bits thrown in. The end of the fingerboard had been butchered either in an attempt to lower the nut or to emulate the Feiten system.

I used the first and fifth frets because this is the largest gap that my vernier will easily accommodate and the larger the gap I am measuring, the less measurement error there is.

It also calculates the width of the frets and expresses the scale length in three different formats as distance from the bridge, from the nut and fret separation. There is also an entry cell for the nut compensation constant for those who misguidedly believe in the notion of nut compensation.

So I thought I'd post it here. You need Excel or Open Office for it. If anyone wants it in AppleWorks or Numbers PM me and i'll convert it.

http://www.humyo.com/F/36428101/EMBED
 
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Re: a useful little tool

Very cool. I'm saving that. Gee, I'm learning all sorts of things from you today, Doc. ;) Since I'm wanting to gradually get in to more guitar maintenance/repair stuff just for my own knowledge and amusement, this could come in handy. Nut work is my next venture but I need files first.
 
Re: a useful little tool

One thing I forgot to mention; if you are working on a bass and the separation value between the first and fifth fret is outside your or you just want to use different frets as references you can modify the term in cell F2 this is

=(D2*((1-A2)/(A2-A2^5)))-E2/2-G2

change the number in red to the number of the fret you want to use as an upper reference. So if you were using the first and third fret it would be changed to read
=(D2*((1-A2)/(A2-A2^3)))-E2/2-G2
Bear in mind that the checksum will display an error value; you would have to change the number of terms used to create the checksum to return this to zero.
 
Re: a useful little tool

Just made some slight changes in the sheet, mainly protecting the result cells from accidentally having their data changed by a misplaced mouse click! New link posted above...
 
Re: a useful little tool

Very cool. I'm saving that. Gee, I'm learning all sorts of things from you today, Doc. ;) Since I'm wanting to gradually get in to more guitar maintenance/repair stuff just for my own knowledge and amusement, this could come in handy. Nut work is my next venture but I need files first.

I've got a friend near you in Richardson, name of Carlie. Plays a Martin. She's a feisty one; a real Texas gal...
 
Re: a useful little tool

You might know this Octave Doctor, is the tech at the Birmingham Sound Control any good? I need a setup on a couple of things.
 
Re: a useful little tool

His name, as I recall is Joe Zivanovich, I think. As far as I'm aware he's good at his job but he seems to have distanced himself from Sound Control as such and has a workshop just around the corner. Well. it's the next door down actually; if you turn right out of the main entrance - it used to be the Acoustic dept but I don't know if it still is - and head towards the bridge it's the next door on the right and up a flight of stairs.

I've not had much to do with him since Sound Control took over Musical Exchanges; I had a few talks with him on the phone about the way things worked with SC (who basically made all their payrolled techs go self-employed about the time I got involved with them in '98) but since then we've had very little contact. I called in to see him on my way back from Scotland but didn't get a very warm reception; that's as much as I know. Anyone who has survived as long as he has (and he was with Musical Exchanges for a long time; I remember him being there in around '93) has to know what he's doing because companies like Sound Control and Musical Exchanges don't tolerate raving incompetents for very long, so I guess your guitar will be in safe hands... ;)

There's a fair choice of techs around Brum,, and remember i'm only just down the road in "smiley" Bristle. I get quite a few punters from Cheltenham and Gloucester. Do you know Paul Scott?
 
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Re: a useful little tool

I've got a friend near you in Richardson, name of Carlie. Plays a Martin. She's a feisty one; a real Texas gal...

They're all feisty...LOL. Just how I like 'em. That's why I moved here and married one myself. ;)
 
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