I was thinking about building a guitar with a scalloped fretboard. Are there any downsides to scallops? I’ve heard chords can be harder to play, is that true?
Also, does the string make contact with the fretboard? I was thinking about trying to stain the wood.
Hi, no downsides that I know off. The upside is better bending, and you can get away with higher action for better tone.
Not if your scallops are deep like a Yngwie neck. I have zero contact with the fretboard.
The only downside is that it is easier for chords to go out of tune. Definitely check out scalloped necks from Warmoth.
I don’t think this is true at all. Its no different from a flat fretboard. Pushing strings down takes of pressure and is painful. This is a common misconception.
I agree that higher frets or scallops help with bending, but I don’t understand how the have any effect on the action. Fretting force depends on string tension and action height, a scalloped fretboard won’t affect that.
Hi Tom. It does affect the effort required to press down. There is no fretboard resistance, so that means you can setup a heigher action, without the penalty of added tension etc. It’s an indirect and often overlooked advantage.
I’m not trying to be contrarian or difficult, but I don’t understand how. The force required to push the string to the fret is the same whether the fretboard is scalloped or not, so far as I understand the physics.
My fretboards aren’t scalloped and the skin of my fingers never touches the wood. There’s no resistance from the fretboard.
Me neither brother. I’ve been playing scalloped exclusively for three years now. Before that my guitars had vintage frets, your fingertips will make contact on fretting. Check any old used guitar, you will see ware from playing on the bord. So with that logic what I said about being able to play with heigher action stands by the fact that you can hammer down on a frett without resistance from the fretboard. Hope that’s clear mate.
Edit: i can understand why you didn’t get my point. If you are using modem jumbo or tall frets that never allow any fingerboard contact. For all practical purposes your already scalloped 
Ah okay. I thought you were implying that the fretting force due to the strings themselves is actually reduced and that scallops reduce that in a way that’s unique to scallops.
I can’t imagine I’d experience any fretboard contact now even with medium frets.
When I was younger, I fretted more with my fingertips and getting under the string while bending gave a little bit of fretboard contact at the finger pads. Now, I fret more with the pads and when I bend, the tips support the lower strings. I have no fretboard contact at any point.
Like anything you’ll adapt to it. The one downside is possibly weakening the neck, and making fret changes harder.
When I was regularly using the guitar I scalloped I adjusted to it fast, infact I think it can be a positive in your playing as you do have to fret more carefully at first, the wood isn’t there to keep your fingers in place, but it can make you more accurate in fretting. If it didn’t take so long to do it I’d probably scallop most my guitars. It is a cool feeling to not have the wood there.
One thing I remember is sliding up n down a string can be harder as your fingers bump into the frets more, but you adapt. And if you’re putting chords out of tune with pressure you’re really not playing carefully enough, being light on the strings really is the way to play well. And to keep your hands healthy.
In my teaching days I’d routinely hand a scalloped guitar to students; if they bent everything out of tune it was a guarantee they were pressing too hard. I found pretty much all of them were.
The only real downside is that you get hit both ways; scalloping is expensive (or time-consuming, your choice,) and it devalues your guitar.
I played a scalloped Strat for years but I’m pretty merciless with gear; found something I liked better and traded it in. At the end of the day it can only help your playing, not hurt it.
BTW Yngwie says scallops make it harder to play fast, he’s just making that up.
I have a couple, and you do risk bending strings out of tune especially on the lower strings and lower down on the fingerboard particularly when chording where you naturally might use more downward pressure to fret. If you’re playing lead it’s not that noticeable. The .018-.020” standard fender string height at the nut doesn’t really help this much. If you have it set up well, and use a lighter touch, you don’t really notice anything. The other downside is that it is harder to do certain fret maintenance work if you had to. I’m not sure I buy into that higher action sounds better thing Yngwie pedals either. Once the frets become the break point for the strings you are either clearing all subsequent frets or you are not. If you have the action really low, you may be causing them not to clear or to clear just barely enough that you may still get rub from the string over the fret when it vibrates. But again this may be more noticeable where the strings vibrate most lower down the fret board, and on lower strings. I think there’s a point of diminishing returns and going any higher than what is reasonable to clear all subsequent frets on a well leveled and set up instrument doesn’t really result in much of any benefit and just causes you to possibly use more downward pressure than necessary to fret.
Yeah it makes it harder to play if you have the strings like an inch off of the fingerboard like he does.
Honestly it makes it easier because you learn to use a lighter touch.
All of my guitars except one are scalloped, and have been for decades. CtC has taught me that everybody is different, so this might only apply to me, but the little bit of flesh-on-wood contact on my regular guitar acts as friction to keep the strings from sliding away from each other. For simple chords, I don’t induce small errors, but for more complex/annoying chords, my fingers naturally separate and the notes composing the chord are no longer “perfect.” In some sense, I make accidental micro-bends, it’s not about pushing down too hard.
I agree with you about the physics. I think that @Twangsta might be thinking about pushing down, really hard, and making the strings sharp (but I wouldn’t consider that bending, but pressing too hard).
Nice! What frets do you have on said axe? And do you tend to have very vertical fingers that come “straight down” on the strings, like (say) violinists? (I always want to be more vertical but I quickly forget and fall back to old habits.)
On the complex chord thing, I might have been avoiding such chords, its been a long time since I played a Ted Greene sheet. So I think you might be right with that. Also since I’ve been doing the country thing with the yngwie neck, since you mentioned it, I noticed if I’m off I just correct without thinking about it. Moved back to a thumb pick last night, tested if I could pull of the yngwie licks and it works! Just need to hold on to the pick like a regular pick for those passages. I’m excited about getting back to the thumb pick. So yeah, I can see the high dollar chords coming back to haunt me 
Yep, that’s what I was thinking, logic was that if your bending off you’d be doing that scalloped or not, but as you said you are making contact to give you some stability.
I’ve been thinking about having just tall frets, and paying more attention to the habits I’ve developed with scalloped, one is I’m damn accurate about which part of my mits touch the string by now and how it changes when anticipting a big bend coming up. I’ve gone from 8-46 to 10/11 - 46, so the scallops are really helping keeping fretting easy. We’re all made differently and my mitts have wide pads, I"m sometimes envious of you guys with long slender fingers, I have to manage with my mutton chops 
I have Warmoth 6100 on my headless guitar, which was the tallest the builder (Rick Canton) could source. My Strat has similarly large wire, but I can’t say what specific fretwire was was used (again, the tallest the luthier could source). My Vigier has “Medium” fretwire, which is supposedly 1.4mm tall, but narrower than a typical Jumbo fret.
I use a variety of different fretting postures, fretting angles and contact approaches depending upon what I’m playing. Sometimes quite vertical, but most of the time the angle is softer, and I fret a little closer to the pads of my fingers to allow for damping of at least one adjacent string.
EDIT: With my flattest fretting approach (similar to Eric Johnsons lead teachnique), there’s a very small and light skin-to-fingerboard contact, but with no perceivable friction or obstruction to bends and vibrato.
I have a very light touch. If my fretting pressure were any lighter, the strings wouldn’t ring clearly.
Yeah I had high action until recently; I’m too idealistic about stuff like that, finally I actually used callipers to measure everything and thought “why am I the only person with action this high?” It’s not about strength, more that everything gets crowded and you feel like you’re walking through three feet of snow.
I would say the angle of the fingertips makes a big difference; a shallow angle results in more fingertip contact with the fretboard.
I moved away from wanting to use very specialized guitars, these days my favourite is a Mexican Strat that I bought used for $800.
I have one too that is a pretty good guitar. I bought it new in 2005 for 300 bucks. I just put in a lot of work getting rid of the fret sprout and rounding the fret edges as well as putting in a new nut and slotting it to my preference. It plays really well. I had already changed out the pickups and put in a nicer bridge and the rest was just the icing. I would gladly use it over the YJM I have.
The YJM is okay, it’s an old one, I think first year fender produced them (mine dates to ‘88) it has the normal sized headstock, and USA 2 point tremolo. I do have a little higher action on it, for me at least. It is a really good guitar too, but you always have to boost it with something which just makes it noisy, and fairly microphonic.
Scalloped fret board help you “get under the string” for bending without it sliding out. You don’t necessarily need higher action, but what some people consider high is often a point of contention. I personally like 5/64th on the bass, and 4/64ths on the treble side. This is “high” action to some people, but “medium” to me. I don’t like low action because of that issue with getting under the string, and also the higher angle provides a purer note as the contact is minimized with the fret.
Scalloped fret board will also help you learn better technique, just enough pressure needed to fret the note(s) properly. Tons of guitarists think guitar is some sort weight lifting sport or gymnastics which isn’t the case. It’s all about finesse and economy of motion. There’s a lot of other factors too and as you mature as a player you become more aware of them. Like how to get sustain, and purer notes, and even manipulate the tone depending on where and how you fret and pick, along with dynamics and a lot of other things that define your style. The more you’re aware of the better, and scalloping is like a crash course in raising that awareness.
The only thing I ever felt was that long fast slides was a bit difficult in the beginning. 
Thanks for all of the great info and discussion, guys.
Are there any capos that work with a scalloped fretboard?