How To: Fretboards

[mikeyswood]

There appears to be a lot of hesitation about making this part for new builders. To quell your nerves I will show you how I do them and other builders (hopefully) will chime in with their variations.

First step for me is to find a piece of wood; I prefer mine from trees.

I am currently making four with 2 Ebony and 2 Tulipwood. I wish this thread allowed you to enjoy the aroma of Tulipwood.

From the rough I plane two clean surfaces, joint one side, and then rip to as wide as cleanly possible. Resaw the wood and you have this:

From there I like to find the grain that will look the best in the fingerboard and it is almost never parallel to an edge. To remedy that I have some rectangle templates that work perfectly:

They are attached with Manco brand carpet tape and every shop should have a few rolls in stock.

From there I rip the excess:

Then route with a flush trim:

If everything goes well it will look like this:

If it doesn't, it will look a little like this:

With the grain where I want it and with square edges I then get ready to cut the slots. I used to do this by hand and kudos to those of you that still do, but there are better ways out there.

StewMac has some nice templates but the price is a deterrent for me. I prefer the old fashion paper templates and glue:

Spray, press, and get ready to cut.

I am a huge fan of the StewMac 6" .023" kerf blade. It is not cheap (~$90 to my door) but the task that used to take an hour is now ten minutes.

When you are done they should look a little like this:

Tapering is simple also. With the center line marked I attach the boards to my taper templates:

And back to the flush trim bit:

And voila:

Three good fingerboards. ...and one exploded piece of Tulipwood.

Attached is the pdf for 36, 35, 34, 33, 32, 31, and 30 inch scales. It is a 36x48 drawing of 1=1. $10 and a Kinkos gives you a full size printout.

 

[abarson]

I love the simplicity of your approach.

 

[Dream Weaver]

Excellent tutorial. I really regret not using MDF templates from the start. They seem to make so many things easier and repeatable.

That 3M Super 77 stuff is awesome! 3M also make some really heavy duty double stick tape that is great for adhering templates that you want to remove cleanly.

 

[Headless Llama]

This is great. I love your approach. This could be the first installment on a how-to for constructing necks. Thanks for posting this.

 

[mikeyswood]

I have had the 3M tape move on me. The Manco tape is extremely sticky and does not move; which has caused a problem during removal...

 

[Zombbg4]

Thanks for sharing, Mikey. Hopefully this will lead to more How To's as it's been a while. I'm always interested in different methods of neck pocket routing.

 

[T2W]

Hey Mikey, I have also been using double sided tape, I got rid of the problematic removal part by putting making tape on first.

 

[Allen_VA]

How do you align the fret line on the paper template to the blade of the radial arm saw?

If the center of the blade was not lined up with the center of the fretline on the template, wouldn't the fretted note wind up being sharp or flat at that fret? Or can you be off either way 10 to 20 thousandths and not make a noticeable difference?

 

[the baint]

Mikey, you don't have a similar 35" scale template, do you? Seems to be a fairly common length for 5 stringers - do you only use 36" scale on those?

Thanks for putting this together for us. You're right in that the fretboard seems to be the most intimidating part of the process for those of us starting out.

 

[Rickett Customs]

Radial arm saw, they scare me a bit (especially if you're not too careful )

I've been thinking about getting a blade, but I may pick up a smaller sliding miter first. I already have a 10" sliding, but I use it for more GP, than fret slots.

Currently, do it the hard way, Blade goes between a Roofer's square and a block on my old trusty Black & Decker table and no templates, just measurements:

 

[mikeyswood]

How do you align the fret line on the paper template to the blade of the radial arm saw?

I do it by eye. Using a .023" line weight when I print so the blade cuts through the entire line:

If the center of the blade was not lined up with the center of the fretline on the template, wouldn't the fretted note wind up being sharp or flat at that fret? Or can you be off either way 10 to 20 thousandths and not make a noticeable difference?

Yes; to both. Your consistency is paramount. If you cut a hair to the left of the line then always cut a hair to the left of the line and cut the nut a hair to the left as well. You will get into to trouble when you have left and right tolerances. Controlling that is one thing that comes with experience. But you also get a little forgiveness in that no one will detect a few cents off of a note and there is no such thing as a perfectly intonated fretted instrument.

Mikey, you don't have a similar 35" scale template, do you? Seems to be a fairly common length for 5 stringers - do you only use 36" scale on those?

Added


Nice Jason. I was old-school at one time but the arm saw is a true luxury. There are many that do it with a tablesaw but I really like being able to see the cut as I make it. Hopefully John or others will post some pics using a table saw with this blade.

 

[mikeyswood]

Hey Mikey, I have also been using double sided tape, I got rid of the problematic removal part by putting masking tape on first.

How so Mario?

Cause this step is a real b*ch:

 

[Rickett Customs]

I know Wiser was using a table saw at one point, he may still be..

 

[salman]

Great post, a couple of questions though. At what point are you putting the radius in your fretboard, or do you only do flat fretboards? The issue I had on one of my fretboards is that I was using Bois de Rose, I sawed the fret lines, then radiused it. Now after radius sanding the fret lines were too shallow and had to be deepened, as I touched them up, because of the oily quality of the wood I was using, some of the fretlines widened up to the point where they wouldn't hold a fret. I ended up trashing the whole thing and used ebony instead.

 

[mikeyswood]

I will taper these boards and then radius. Whenever I have needed to touch up a slot I use a t-bevel and handsaw in the fashion that Jason showed.

I cut my slots pretty deep and have not had to do that lately.

 

[OHSPyro89]

I also cut my slots fairly deep, almost 3/4 of the way through the fretboard (usually around 1/4" thickness). You can always fill the small openings beneath frets if it is too deep, or use it as an excuse to add fretboard binding.

 

[M0ses]

Some info on radiusing would make this good "how to" great.

 

[Mr-Wunderful]

subscribed

 

[Rickett Customs]

Some info on radiusing would make this good "how to" great.

2 ways here, Radius block (with the appropriate radius....sewmac or LMII) and some 3m "stickit" paper, 80 grit initial, 150, then 300 to smooth it up.

I use the same black and decker table, a scrap piece of wood for the table to clamp in the center, double side tape the FB to the scrap piece then clamp 2 3/4" thick pieces (with fairly square edges) on each side (to keep the radius block center) and have at it......

FYI the LMI blocks are wider.


or...... Erik could tell you himself, he uses some custom machined router bits on a router table for his radii.

 

[T2W]

How so Mario?

Cause this step is a real b*ch:

I put masking tape on my template, and also on my workpiece, then I stick my double sided tape onto either the template or the workpiece. When comes time to take the template off, its a real breeze, no more double sided tape to scrape off, no more wood chips caused from the super crazy sticky double tape I use.. Hold on.