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Neck
Surgery
Q
How should I go about scalloping
my guitar's fingerboard?
Nadim Makhoul
Beirut, Lebanon
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A
Scalloped
fingerboards let you bend strings more easily—you can
push and pull without the fingerboard getting in the way.
But since there is no definite stop for down pressure, they
also require a lot more skill to play in tune. The first time
John McLaughlin asked me to scallop a fingerboard, I remember
wondering if he would be able to play in tune. The answer
was clear in the first few moments after he picked up the
guitar; he launched into a Bach composition with chords requiring
extreme left-hand stretches, all played with casual ease and
perfectly in tune.
Before you get
started on an ambitious project like this, there are a few
things to consider. Scalloping will weaken your guitar's neck,
so you should get an experienced luthier to examine the neck
(and truss rod) before you start. Also, you are removing the
supporting wood that keeps the edges of the fret slots intact
when the fret wire is pried out, and if you ever have to refret
the guitar, you may lose big chunks of fingerboard next to
the fret slots, particularly in the upper fret region where
the slots are closer together. So if you think you might be
refretting the guitar in the future, I recommend that you
remove the fret wire before scalloping the fingerboard, widen
the fret slots, and use a glue-in method of fretting that
will allow you to remove the frets with heat alone.
At Wechter guitars,
we start the scalloping .1-inch deep at the first fret and
taper the depth down to about .06-inch at the 22nd fret. We
use an oscillating spindle sander that can be fitted with
different diameter sanding spindles to rough the scalloping
out, then we finish by hand with sandpaper and scrapers. We've
also done the job entirely by hand with a sharp gouge instead
of the spindle sander.
—Abe
Wechter
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A
scalloped fingerboard on a Wechter guitar.
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The
Strokes
Q
I've been working on some
of the songs transcribed in A.G., like the Doc Watson arrangement
of "Rolling in My Sweet Baby's Arms" (June), and I have two questions
about the use of arrows showing strum direction. First, does an
up arrow indicate an upstroke or does it mean strum from the bass
strings to the treble strings? Second, what do I strum—the
most recent chord listed above the staff or the most recent set
of notes played (sometimes it's just two or three strings)?
Albert Fantozzi
Silver Springs, Maryland
A
The reason those
strum arrows are confusing is because music notation and tablature
have the high notes on top while the higher strings on the guitar
are on the bottom (closer to the floor). Therefore those arrows
pointing up are actually referring to downstrokes. When you look
at the tab and see an up arrow, it's pointing from the lower strings
to the higher strings, but the motion of strumming from the lower
strings to the higher strings is a downstroke. Simply put, an up
arrow is a downstroke, and a down arrow is an upstroke. Yup, it's
wacky.
As a general rule, any
strums indicated after a tabbed-out chord refer to that chord; when
the chord changes, I will tab out the new chord. I prefer to lay
it out this way because when every strum is tabbed out, the transcription
looks confusing and readers can get hung up on exactly which strings
to strike. My approach to tab allows you to focus on the chords
and rhythms rather than worry about hitting the precise middle three
strings of a particular chord.
—Andrew
DuBrock
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Zealous
for Ziricote
Q
The recent Q&A item on cocobolo
(July) was very interesting. But in the accompanying photograph
of an unfinished body of a Froggy Bottom guitar, the wood looked
like ziricote? What's the difference?
Peter Grassadonia
Capitola, California
A
The wood commonly
called ziricote can resemble some of the rosewoods like cocobolo
and Brazilian, but it is not botanically classified with them; it
is of the genus Cordia, usually Cordia dedecondra.
It is native to Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala, where other common
names for it are canaleta, frieja, and peterebi. Typically,
ziricote is a grey-green color with black streaking or figuring
as opposed to the reds and browns of most rosewoods. It is hard
and heavy, heavier than many rosewoods and, like cocobolo, its dust
can cause allergic reactions in some people. A related species occasionally
used in guitar construction, bocote, grows in the same regions as
ziricote. It is not quite as dense and heavy and is usually tan
or light brown in color with darker brown figuring. The most common
variety is Cordia tricotoma but there are others that are
also called bocote and sometimes, inaccurately, "Mexican rosewood."
—Charles Vega
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Excerpted from
Acoustic Guitar magazine,
October
2003, No. 130.
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