Making the fingerboard
Dense, hard wood is an ideal material for the fingerboard. You can use ebony (1), rosewood (2), pau ferro, maple, plumwood (3)
and pearwood. The easiest way of planing the fingerboard down |
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to its eventual thickness is with a thickness planer. If you need to |
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plane the board thinner than the machine can accommodate, |
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raise the fingerboard by placing a flat, 19mm (3/4")-thick board |
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under it in the thickness planer and fasten it so that it cannot be |
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pulled out of the machine. The fingerboard could, however, just |
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as well be planed by hand (4) as long as you plane evenly thick |
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and keep turning the fingerboard regularly. Fingerboards are |
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usually 6mm (1/4") thick. First plane one surface of the finger- |
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board flat, then the opposite, until the two are parallel. Before |
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you start working with the handplane fasten the fingerboard |
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with double-stick tape. |
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Marking the fret positions |
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To mark the fret positions place the fingerboard on a flat, narrow |
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surface at the edge of the table. Using a clamp on either end, |
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fasten a long rule at a short distance from and parallel to the |
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edge of the fingerboard so that its zero-mark is slightly inside of |
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the fingerboard end. Have a list of all the fret distances from the |
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zero-fret (front nut edge) ready in front of you. If you measure in |
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inches try to get a ruler with 1/100" marks or use one that is |
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divided into 1/64" and estimate the fret positions as accurate as |
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you can. Don't use a tape measure for this task - always use a |
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quality steel ruler for marking fret distances. |
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Using a very fine knife, make little grooves into the edge of the |
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fingerboard at all fret positions, starting at the zero-mark of the |
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rule (5). It is obviously impossible to work to an accuracy of one |
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hundredth of a millimeter or one thousandth of an inch, so the |
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figures will have to be rounded up (5-9) or down (1-4) to tenths |
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of a millimeter or hundredths of an inch. Try to be as accurate as |
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possible when laying out the fret distances. |
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When the zero-fret and all other frets (plus one additional one |
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for the fingerboard end) have been marked, double- |
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check the distances by reading off each position from |
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the rule and then comparing these readings with the |
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figures in the table. If the two differ by more than |
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0.3mm or 1/64", the mark is invalid and has to be |
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recut. |
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Fret slots in a one-piece neck
On one-piece necks without separate fingerboard the fret slots are cut directly into the neck blank. The nut, too, is seated in a slot cut into the neck. The front edge of the nut slot has to be exactly identical with the zero-fret line. Make a few more cuts to make the nut slot wider towards the peghead side of the line until the nut fits in.
Making the fret slots
The fret slots can be cut by hand with a backsaw or a Japanese saw. Use a sawblade that produces a cut corresponding in width to the width of the fret tang. Very often an 0.6mm (0.024") sawkerf will be just right. The German-made Blitz saw (available from guitarmakers' suppliers) shown in pictures 1 and 2 can be fitted with blades of different widths; the wide choice available (widths graded by 0.1mm) should make it easy to get the width of the fret slots right. Before measuring the width of the fretwire tang with a caliper remove any burrs with a file in order to get an accurate measurement.
Place the saw on the mark and cut a small groove. Then place a square on the edge of the fingerboard and push it towards the sawblade. Using the square as a fence the fret slots can now be cut perfectly square. When you approach the end of the fingerboard turn the fingerboard so that you have a long-enough fence for the square to ride against. If a zero-fret is to be fitted, saw off the fingerboard about 5mm (3/16") from it towards the peghead. If you don't use a zero-fret, saw through the fingerboard exactly at the zero-fret slot. At the body end the fingerboard is sawn through at the additionally marked fret.
All fret slots should be a little bit deeper than the tang of the fretwire. To ensure this is the case fasten a depth stop on either side of the sawblade (2). Place the sawblade between two strips of wood or metal that are raised on either side by shims of a thickness that you want the fret slot depth to be (see illustration below). By firmly pressing the two strips, which have doublestick tape on them, against the blade you get an accurate depth stop.
The fret slots should ideally be of exactly the same width as the fretwire (without barb) or only marginally (by 0.1mm) less wide. Fret slots that are too narrow can cause the neck to be bent backwards by the wedge effect of all the frets combined while fret slots that are too wide make the neck too flexible.
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Sawblade |
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Shim as high as the |
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Wooden strip fastened |
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desired fret slot depth |
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with double-stick tape |
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Cutting fret slots with a machine is a time-saving alternative. Commercial guitar manufacturers use computer-controlled routers which can cut the fret slots to an accuracy of 0.01mm. You can, however, also cut them in your own workshop using a tablesaw with a very thin blade. Sawblades intended for cutting metal are available from tool suppliers in various widths. The one shown in picture 3 is 0.6mm (0.024") thin. If the center hole does not fit onto your tablesaw arbor, you will have to get it enlarged. Since they do not have set teeth, they should not be used for making deeper cuts than those required for the fret slots, or else the extremely thin sawblade could quickly be overstrained. My blade, which is shown in picture 3, had a 22mm-diameter hole. In order to fit on my 30mm tablesaw arbor it was enlarged on a lathe using a cone-shaped grinding stone. Tablesaw blades for cutting 0.024"-wide fret slots are also available from guitarmakers' suppliers. These are specially intended for wood. I must say that I never experienced any problems with my 0.6mm-wide HSS sawblade although it was made for cutting metal. It is advisable to use stiffeners on both sides of the blade that are only marginally smaller in diameter than the blade itself, but I didn't notice any drawbacks without them.
A further improvement would be to use a template as this would do away with the time-consuming and error-prone job of marking fret positions. Templates for a number of common scale lengths can either be bought from guitarmakers' suppliers or made on a big milling machine; they are normally made of clear plastic or of metal and have small notches at the fret positions along one of their edges. Fasten the template with either two short strips of double-stick tape or one long strip of adhesive tape on the back of the neck (4). An index pin is mounted in a long narrow board which is fastened at the miter gauge or the crosscut sled of the tablesaw; the pin fits accurately into the template notches (arrow). I have one index pin for fingerboards, fastened about 8mm (5/16") above the tablesaw surface, and when I turn the board upside down there is a second pin for onepiece necks about 27mm (11/16") above the surface. By moving the fingerboard (plus the template that is fastened to it) and locating the index pin in the next notch after each cut the fret slots in the neck will be absolutely accurate, i.e. in the right places and at the right distance from each other, provided the template was made accurately enough (5). In this way all the fret slots can be cut in a matter of minutes.
Such templates can also be used with a jig and a backsaw as shown in the section on Steve Jarman.
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