Welcome to the family Carlos... On behalf of all the senior members here I have to say, you've chosen a disease for which there is no cure! Some of us have been playing and practicing for over 4 yrs now and ever day is a new experience filled with joy and confusion, sadness and triumphs.

I started learning on an acoustic and before long I had acquired 5 acoustics and one electric 5 string. A couple are very very old. I have two more electric 5 strings on their way which I will be installing the newly made fretted fingerboards on which I now mfg.

On the acoustics (for future reference should you decide to get one) I have had cheap steel strings, Zyex synthetic core, Helicore, Tonica, Pro Arte, Preludes and a couple of others that escape my memory. Out of all of those, I have to say the most dramatic difference I achieved and for the better was the Zyex strings.

Now, on the electric, they don't rely on the violin itself to assist in making a good sound so you find that only the string, the nut and tailpiece, and the strings themselves coupled to the bridge will make a sound vibration for the pickup to reproduce. That brings us to the next thing that influences our choices. The pickup can be magnetic pickup coil type (like an electric guitar), or a piezo-electric pickup which is basically a crystal that changes the vibrations and pressures of the vibration into tiny electrical impulses. The magnetic pickups need a steel core string to make a decent sound...but not on the piezo equipped one. You have a piezo-electric pickup on your violin so... just about any string that works on the acoustic violins will work on the electric you have.

I personally have NS Strings on my 5 string but they are a little bit expensive and I wanted to step up to a more suitable string for the fretted fingerboard... I noticed a big difference in sound over the previous strings which I had on (The Helicores) but I also installed my fretted fingerboard at the same time. If I was going to choose a set of strings for your violin, I'd think a set of Helicores would be fine or the Preludes. You will certainly hear a good improvement over the "stock strings" normally associated with the instruments like ours.

Enjoy yourself here, there's a lot of fun stuff to take part in, like the upcoming Christmas tune many members are going to participate in as well as other threads on the forum page.

Again... welcome to the family.

Carlos... you can check out how difficult it is to do REAL frets and the time and equipment involved on my thread found here.

https://fiddlerman.com/forum/f.....ur-violin/

I have made several fretted fingerboards for both electric and acoustic violins. I have used Maple, Ebony, and Red Oak. Some are finished with binding some not. My latest uses fiber optics instead of the traditional 'dots' you might find on say a guitar.

The thread referenced above will give you plenty of insight as to what goes into this mystical endeavor. Fret height, width etc is all in there. Enjoy the read.

Carlos Quintero said
@cdennyb thanx for the fret info!!!!

Curiosity. Will you be selling these? 

If so how much?

Well, I actually started making one for my own personal use on my own violin because there was none to be found!

I have already sold two here locally, all for electric instruments. So, I guess I could make another few to sell.

The problem with making them is I have no way to put it on your violin unless you mailed it to me to do and I would have it about 3 weeks. For most people, that's a long time.

Another option is to have a luthier near you take the board and swap out yours for the fretted one...but that would be a last resort. Before I can just send one out I would need a lot of additional info.

Dimensions of the current fingerboard, height of your strings at the nut and at the end of your current fingerboard, the length and width at both ends of your current board and the distance from the peak of your bridge to the peak of the nut which is called the strung length. I would need to know which kind of wood to use, what color of dots to use, what binding is wanted and whether or not the dots would even be wanted (I also am working on a fiber optic design to replace those dots) and if there is even enough room in the body of the violin to house the fiber optic light source and wires, etc. From those bits and pieces of info I could make one.

Perhaps a PM or email is in order. cdennyb@hotmail.com

Don't think for a minute that I haven't chatted about this subject with my violin partner!

I don't have a proper inventory of "loaners" to offer but perhaps I might be able to speed up the installation process a little by having the basic boards completed and just have to do the final fitting and shaping and attachment.

Most 4/4 4 strings are the same width dimensions on the f'board and if I made them the largest of the normal sizes, I could easily sand it to fit in just a short time.

Certainly worth thinking on some more.