Two factors are of importance here. First the fret has to be crowned to get a good tone however, many soundboards are very thin in the area where the body frets are supposed to be located. This makes tone production a wobbly affair. It is easy to know where the bars are situated because where the body fret is positioned on or very close to a bar the sound is much improved. Some luthiers glue additional bars to the soundboard to stiffen it up in the critical area, although the old ones sometimes do not have those bars. Not all historical lutes had body frets or so it seems. My favorite fret material is bamboo as it is very easy to split and after glueing it on is very easy to crown and adjust the height with a small chisel. Take care not to dig in the belly though! Happy luting!
Lex Op 30 okt 2013, om 06:05 heeft Dan Winheld het volgende geschreven: > Talk of tastini has gotten me wondering, what is the best material for body > frets? I have been playing a lot of music recently that dances around in the > lute's stratosphere- Melchior Neusidler, Mudarra, Milan's advanced fantasias, > etc. The plain wooden frets I have now- probably Maple, maybe Boxwood; sound > pretty terrible compared to the gut frets. I am thinking Ebony, some other > dense tropical hardwood, bone, or even some modern synthetic- but only if > aesthetically acceptable & sonically superior. If anyone knows of some magic > non-metallic body fret material I would really like to know. > > Part of the problem is the buzzing, unclean sound that results from a squared > off fret- an inevitable result of having to shave them down for proper > clearance after gluing down. Ideally, they should be crowned- or at least > rounded edges for best tone. Tough, fussy job to do even before installation > for the non-luthier DIY amateur. > > Thanks all for any enlightenment on this bit of lute pain. > > Dan > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
