Fretboard thicknes

[saved]

Hi.
Its time to glue the fretboard but i dont know how thick it should be.
The bass is for me,not for sale.
The fretboard will be flat without radius.
I am thinking to make it 3 layer with wenge,maple,wenge, each layer is 3mm thick.
I have build a bass in the past with 7mm fretboard and it was looking and working very nice.
The 9mm is to much,or is ok?
The neck is maple,so this combination will look very cool (i think)
Thank you in advance

 

[Christine]

Is there enough wood left in the neck for the truss rod without the whole thing being too thick? If so perhaps you could use a Wenge fingerboard and inlay a maple or white plastic lile along the edge to give the same effect?

 

[saved]

I dont understand your idea

 

[Scoops]

Hi.
Its time to glue the fretboard but i dont know how thick it should be.
The bass is for me,not for sale.
The fretboard will be flat without radius.
I am thinking to make it 3 layer with wenge,maple,wenge, each layer is 3mm thick.
I have build a bass in the past with 7mm fretboard and it was looking and working very nice.
The 9mm is to much,or is ok?
The neck is maple,so this combination will look very cool (i think)
Thank you in advance

What bridge you using?

I would think your minimum fingerboard stackup plus fret height would need to be calculated and then weighed against the minimum height of the bridge saddles

 

[saved]

Abm style bridge.
I will mesure the high because i dont know it

 

[MPU]

I’m using 5mm-6mm thick fretboards. I made my twisted neck bass with two 2,5mm ply fretboard.

 

[saved]

The minimun high at bridge is 11mm.
So,if the fretboard be 9mm + 2 mm the frets = the minimum high.
If the action will be 5mm (is good 5mm action?) then i thing is ok

 

[Matt Liebenau]

The minimun high at bridge is 11mm.
So,if the fretboard be 9mm + 2 mm the frets = the minimum high.
If the action will be 5mm (is good 5mm action?) then i thing is ok

Besides just the fretboard and frets you have to take into account how far the neck heel itself sticks out of the body or is the fretboard level with the body?

 

[saved]

Τhe neck without the fretboard is in the same level with the body

 

[Matt Liebenau]

Ok. Just wanted to make sure you weren't about to have a miscalculation.

 

[mark5009]

My $0.02 is 9mm is not too thick if you think of the fretboard as part of the neck and design accordingly. For example, if you are after a really thin neck at the head end (say 15mm), then you'll only have 6mm of neck neck under the fretboard. Not a lot of room if you also have a truss rod buried in the neck. Which means you can move the truss rod up (route a channel in the back of the fb), change the design to give yourself a thicker neck, or thin out the fb. All are doable and valid.

Part of the reason for thin fretboards is historic. The material, ebony or rosewood, was exotic and expensive so it was expensive and wasteful to use a lot of it. If you're not going to use those woods then you can make the fb just the way you want to.