Odd fingerboard dot pattern

Tonedef

It's accoustic weirdness day today.

So I dug out and dusted off the old steel-string accoustic lying in the storage room to have a looksee. It belonged to the mrs' mom, it's an oooold thing. "Unisound" brand.... really a cheap 'n nasty looking thing. The thing has a sky-high action, the strings are like elevator cables and are bound to cause tetanus.

Anyway, when I started fiddling with it, the main thing that struck me was that the scale on the fretboard is COMPLETELY out of whack compared to what I'm used to. I forgot to take a pic but will upload it when I get around to it.

I'm used to:

] | |·| |·| |·| |·| | |? | etc

but this thing has something like:

] |·| |·| |? |·| |·| |

Lolwut? ??? ???

The note progression down the fretboard also sounds odd. But I don't have an analog tuner so I have no idea what's what. It has much fewer frets than my electrics.

I'll post a pic as soon as I can but maybe somebody knows what's going on here! ?

EDIT: Here's a pictar! (not quite what I dotted out above but odd nonetheless)

singemonkey

Some kind of cargo-cult guitar.

Tonedef

singemonkey wrote: Some kind of cargo-cult guitar.

That was my thought as well. Like it's really only supposed to be a wall decoration or something. But it does look like it was designed to be played somehow. The tuners are really grotty and wonky, but they work.

Jack-Flash-Jr

It's the result of careful design to address the needs of fretboard shiftlexics...

Tonedef

Whoops, completely forgot about this thread! Pic added!

Some weird shit right there. ???

Norman86

It only has 17 frets, so it obviously has a much shorter scale length!
Doesnt explain the "weird" fretboard pattern however...

What i have seen though when it comes to the dot fretboard patterns, is that you dont just have the standard single dot, with a double dot on the 12th fret...
you also have some where the double dot is also on the 9th, 7th or 5th frets too!
fretboard patterns are cosmetic after all ?

But as for the guitar sounding weird... thats to do with the scale length being different!
I could be wrong, but i dont think so!
Shorter scales tend to have higher pitches!
longer scales lower pitches!

Bob-Dubery

Two dots at the 9th fret is not common but not unheard of either. Ditto not dot at 3. I've seen acoustics with two dots at 7 and three at 12. In this case the neck joins the body at the 12th fret, so no confusion there really.

Many classical instruments have no dots at all. My Morgan has no dots on the face of fingerboard, only has them on the side. A couple of people I know say you only need ONE dot - on the side and at the 5th fret. I think the bare minimum you can get away with for a guitar that has 14 frets to the body is two - 5 and 12.

The pattern you describe as the one you're used to is the most common on flat tops, but I've seen plenty of variations.

Tonedef

In other words what you're telling me is that I don't have a snowball's chance in hell of tuning this thing in a way that makes sense to me ☹

Norman86

its probably a 3/4 size guit! Tune it howzit, then tune it to standard tuning! If that doesnt work... Uhm...
Im sure the others then have more experience inthat department! ?

Bob-Dubery

Norman86 wrote: But as for the guitar sounding weird... thats to do with the scale length being different!
I could be wrong, but i dont think so!
Shorter scales tend to have higher pitches!
longer scales lower pitches!

The notes should still change by a semi-tone from fret to fret.

Gearhead

Harmonics will tell you the truth. You should be able to locate second harmonic (12th fret), third (7th) and fourth (5th). If there are different frets there, or none at all, throw it away ?

singemonkey

Gearhead wrote: If there are different frets there, or none at all, throw it away ?