11/9/2004

The last couple of days have been the most trying of the entire project so far. I began slotting my fretboard. I was ready with my Stewart-Macdonald fretting saw and my fretboard. I didn't want to, quite frankly, spend $70 on a slotting jig and another $40 on an aluminum template. While I'm sure they're good tools, I wanted to rely on only the absolutely necessary tools. I made a fence out of 2 pieces of red oak. The idea was simply to have a guide that would allow me to keep the saw at a 90 degree angle to the fretboard. The set-screw on the bottom allows me to dial in the right-angle depending on the thickness of the fretboard stock. I used a 4" C-clamp to keep it in position.

11/9/2004

I was immediately frustrated by the fact that the saw didn't cut as well as I'd expected. I don't know if this is just a mediocre saw or if the material I'm building with, is too hard. Some folks over at www.ProjectGuitar.com don't think this is rosewood at all. I took someone's advice to rub candle-wax on the blade but that only seemed to make it slide over the wood and cut less! The seller of this wood insists this is Honduran Rosewood. In the end, I found that by taking off the depth stop and started the kerf with the fence, I could finish the cut without the fence or the depth stop in far less time. All in all, it took me about 3 hours to do all 24 frets. There is no question of this fact: I will build a table-saw jig for slotting fretboards in the future. Ultimately, I got the frets slotted and here it is.

4/9/2005

It's been a while since any work was done to the fretboard and today it was time to install the fret wire. I started by sanding the board to 400 grit and cleaning it with denatured alcohol and the Shop Vac. I made a press arbor with a caul I got from Stewart MacDonald but found the 16" radius caul didn't match the actual radius of the fretboard even though I radiused it with a 16" radius sanding block from Stewart MacDonald. So, I decided to hammer them in with a Stanley Lump Hammer I bought today. I used a triangular file to file a small bevel into each slot so that the frets would seat properly. Then, I bent my fret wire with a fret bender I made from plans I found on ProjectGuitar.com. Aside from the Lexan base, I bought all the parts at Home Depot for about $12. I put a radius in the wire that was slightly smaller than the radius in the board. Just enough so that when place on the board, the wire touch only the edges of the board and not the center. Then, I cut all my pieces and put them in a holder I made from scrap maple. Each piece was then seated on the board by tapping the edges into the slot and then gradually working towards the center making sure the edges didn't lift. The results are show below.

4/10/2005

Today I started trimming and filing the frets. I did the trimming with the same channel-lock cutters I used for cutting the small fret pieces then filed used a 6" Mill Bastard. I just taped the sides of the neck so I didn't scuff it up. I then made a fret-beveler that I intend on using tomorrow.

4/18/2005

Here's a couple of pictures of the frets after being beveled with the bevel block I made. I sanded them with 400 grit paper as well. I'll be sanding and polishing the ends more in a couple of days.