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Fingerboard, how flat before gluing to neck?

rwkeating

rwkeating

Oct 1, 2014
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Chicago
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#1
I have a 1/4" piece of maple that I want to use as a fingerboard. I thought it was flat, but on further examination I see it is cupped (but not twisted). Since it is 1/4", it doesn't take too much force to flatten it out by pressing on it. I am tempted to glue it on as is since it is figured and I know planing it may spell disaster with regard to tear out.

What do you guys do in this situation? If I glue it on, with the glue be able to hold it flat? Regardless of what I do I will be sanding the fingerboard (top) flat after it is glued onto the neck and prior to putting the frets in.
 
#4
Yep, what they said. A little bit of cupping isn't a big deal. To be safe, glue the concave side to the neck. That way, when you clamp it and flex it flat, the sides will be getting extra pressure to make sure you don't get any gaps along the edges.

By the way, I always glue fingerboards on necks face down, on top of a flat beam.
 
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#5
Interesting that you say glue the concave side to the neck. I didn't think that would be a good idea since the truss rod is in the middle and there would be less glue area to hold the middle of the fingerboard down (as it was being pulled up by the cupping.) I was thinking of gluing the convex side down as the glue on the side would hold it down and the natural cupping would force the middle down in the center.
 
#8
Bruce Johnson said:
By the way, I always glue fingerboards on necks face down, on top of a flat beam.
Click to expand...

If your fingerboard is cupped as you say, then gluing with a flat beam is a REALLY good idea. You don't want the fingerboard to pull and distort the neck. So It would be very wise to glue both together with a large flat metal beam to ensure that the glue sets both straight.
 
#10
For those still reading ... I read that you can correct this cupping by drying the side that is too wet or wetting the side that is too dry. I chose to wet the dry side (by lightly misting it with water) and I stored it face down on the side I misted. Surprisingly the board was much flatter then next day and I didn't clamp it or have any weight on it. It obviously helps that this board is only 1/4" thick but still, I learned something new and the results are very impressive.

I know that I could probably avoid this experimentation and just glue it down as is, but I want to score the fret slots before gluing the fingerboard to the neck and I would like to work on as flat a surface as possible when doing that.
 

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