Fretting a Double Bass

[Owen]

Yes, I know that it is not a concept which immeadiately springs to mind, but being a DB player I really like the facilty my right hand has over an arched fingerboard. I have an old DB neck complete with fingerboard which I could easily (hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!) knock up into an EUB thing. Would fretting a curved fingerboard be do-able as a retro fit job. NS design do one so it is do-able but who would undertake such a job?

Is this my stupidest idea yet?

[Dom in Dorset]

In times past they used to tie gut around the neck to make frets :

[dannybuoy]

Yet again lending weight to the phrase "there's no money past the 7th fret"!

[Myke]

I reckon it could be done, no expert or anything but surely it's like a normal fretboard with more curve?

And I'd love to see it done!

[steve]

[quote name='owen' timestamp='1364470269' post='2026854']
Yes, I know that it is not a concept which immeadiately springs to mind, but being a DB player I really like the facilty my right hand has over an arched fingerboard. I have an old DB neck complete with fingerboard which I could easily (hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!) knock up into an EUB thing. Would fretting a curved fingerboard be do-able as a retro fit job. NS design do one so it is do-able but who would undertake such a job?

Is this my stupidest idea yet?
[/quote]

yes, probably

when you come to your senses and decide you can't be arsed, I might well be interested in buying the neck off you tho'

[Owen]

I have an NS eub which gets an innordinate amount of love from sound engineers every time I drag it out. I would happily buy a 6 string one to do the bottom F# thing if I could see if the fretted thing worked.

[Owen]

On further thought, intonating a bridge on an already existing EUB for fretted work would be a total pain and would mean a radical bit of wood surgery

[lettsguitars]

The trouble would be with the height of the strings and as you say, intonation. There's no reason why it couldn't be done though. I was actually going to suggest the gut frets thing. That would be the best way to do it. I'm sure there are many materials you could experiment with.

[Owen]

I had reached the stage of a new nut and would probably need individual bridge pieces for the radius. What I am thinking of would be getting newtone strigns to wind me a set of 41" roundwounds. I'm not sure the gut frets would last too long. Of course this would be an expensive experiment which might not be "all that" in the end!