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Bad News: LMII is closing down.....

#64
LMII was my go-to for fretboards because I could get them slotted, radiused, etc. Now that they're going out of business, who's out there that offers that same service? I'm looking for a granadillo or jatoba fretboard that's ready to glue on, finish, and fret.

EDIT: I should have read through the whole thread. :whistle:

Bruce Johnson said:
My buddy Jeremy Kirsch (Freekmagnet) and I talked for a while this afternoon about whether we should go into offering fingerboard radiusing and slotting as a service to other small Luthiers. Over the years, I've done many individual fingerboards for Luthiers I know. I already have the special machines. I could do a few upgrades to the fixtures to make them more efficient at holding blank fingerboards. And bring in Jeremy to help with the labor of doing the jobs. We could offer any scale length, any radius, even fanned frets. Mostly working by mail order. And our prices would be in the range of what LMI has been charging.

We haven't decided for sure, but agreed that it could work as a long term side business for us.
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#65
Tslicebass said:
Yes they are. But they are not accepting any customer wood and that was my issue. I have a nice satinwood fretboard for a stock build I needed slotted and may end up having to just do it myself. My bigger concern is slotting 6/7 string fretboards in the future as most mitre slotting boxes and jigs available on the market don’t accommodate wider than around 3” boards. LMI would do up to 4” for me (although sometimes begrudgingly)
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If you have a decent table saw you should take a look at a slotting blade for your fingerboards. You can build a simple jig that fits in the mitre slots and use the same templates the mitre box setup uses. I can do a full 24 fret board in about 5 minutes and you aren't limited by board width. It's also just a handy little blade to have in the shop. The tiny teeth and small kerf are great for cutting veneer and other small pieces cleanly.
 
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#66
A closing note: I think this coming week is the final week for LMI before they officially close down. As of last week, they still had some 4-string bass 1st grade Macassar ebony fingerboards left. And they've even reduced the price from $49 to $37. I bought 10 more. I have 32 of them in stock now. I think that's all I'm going to buy.

This may be your last chance.
 
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#69
Seems like there is a small business opportunity here. People need boards slotted and radiused, and capacity for custom scales would probably be just what people want. No idea on the scale of the business, but I recognize this is something that ideally would be based in the US for ease of use, timeliness and cost. If someone had gangsaw set ups for the most common scales (35, 34, 32, 30) and a CNC with files for metric scales and capacity for custom scales, plus either a custom one-by-one saw that can do any angles and accommodate any radius like @Bruce Johnson 's fretting saw, you could respond to most people's needs.

With some radius cutting machines (multiple ways to skin that cat), it would probably be pretty busy. Assuming responsiveness and turnaround times, it could be pretty successful just dealing with myriad smaller builders let alone medium commercial builders. Add onto that a selection of fingerboards made available for anyone who wants to buy them ready-made, it could be a success.

I've thought about this already myself, but being in Canada, it would mostly make sense to provide to canadian builders and probably wouldn't carve into the american market too much. That said, I'm still thinking about it. :D

FingerboardsRus.com :woot:
 
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#70
I have the technology and machines to radius & slot fingerboards, and I've been doing this service for about 20 years. Mostly to a group of pro Luthiers here in the Los Angeles area. I wasn't advertising to the whole US or trying to build it up as a mail order business. I haven't done many in the last five years, other than for my own basses.

With LMI closing, I am planning to upgrade some of my tooling and fixtures and offer radius & slotting service to Luthiers. I'm going to mostly do basses, custom scale lengths, small quantities. Customer sends me the wood blanks. I'm not interested in becoming a fingerboard wood dealer.

I'm not looking to build it up into a big money-making business. Someone else is welcome to do that if they like. I'm just trying to help out small Luthiers.
 
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#73
They have at least a few things. I have a couple of truss rods coming from them and another place to see which ones will require less adjusting of my fretless 5 neck to replace the rod. I ordered a couple of fretboards to get up to the free shipping total.
 
#74
I would definitely be interested in pursuing available options for fret slotting! I have the pull saw and it works great, just takes forever. If Bruce or someone else makes fret slotting services available now that LMII is gone, it would be wonderful.

On a related point, what saw options are available for table saws or miter saws, if any? The StewMac table saw blade has been out of stock for months, frustratingly. Between that and the LMII situation, there are no immediate good options.
 
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#75
Lonnybass said:
I would definitely be interested in pursuing available options for fret slotting! I have the pull saw and it works great, just takes forever. If Bruce or someone else makes fret slotting services available now that LMII is gone, it would be wonderful.

On a related point, what saw options are available for table saws or miter saws, if any? The StewMac table saw blade has been out of stock for months, frustratingly. Between that and the LMII situation, there are no immediate good options.
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@rudy4444 has the best system I've used. I'm tagging him rather than supplying the details, because I'm lazy and can't find them. It's a slitting saw set up on a dedicated sliding miter saw. I use a small Kobalt bought on sale for this purpose. :thumbsup:
 
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#76
Beej said:
@rudy4444 has the best system I've used. I'm tagging him rather than supplying the details, because I'm lazy and can't find them. It's a slitting saw set up on a dedicated sliding miter saw. I use a small Kobalt bought on sale for this purpose. :thumbsup:
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Thanks Beej! If you're talking about the Kobalt with the 7 1/4" blade, I've got the same one in my workshop, so this is trending in a positive direction already. :hyper:
 
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#77
#78
Lonnybass said:
I would definitely be interested in pursuing available options for fret slotting! I have the pull saw and it works great, just takes forever. If Bruce or someone else makes fret slotting services available now that LMII is gone, it would be wonderful.

On a related point, what saw options are available for table saws or miter saws, if any? The StewMac table saw blade has been out of stock for months, frustratingly. Between that and the LMII situation, there are no immediate good options.
Click to expand...

Yes, I plan to offer fingerboard radiusing and slotting service in 2024. To small Luthiers, like you folks here on Luthier's Corner.

I didn't realize that the Stew-Mac slotting blades were unavailable right now. I have two of them that I've been using for about 28 years on my slotting saw. I sharpen them every few years, and swap them back and forth. They are really well designed blades, well worth the money. They are expensive because Stew-Mac has them custom ground, and the teeth are set. They cut better and smoother than standard Slotting Saw blades from a machinery supplier. But, you can imagine how little demand there is for them. How many Luthiers are willing to invest in a power saw slotting rig? And how many of them would spend $75 for just the blade? They probably just have a few made up every few years.
 
#79
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#80
If there’s any Indian Rosewood left, I highly recommend getting some…
IMG_1752.jpeg
 
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