Tag: Fretboard

Week 25 – More neck work

Posted on by Iain 'Cutty' Carlin

Fitting truss rod

  • Block plane & chisel down truss rod cover strip so flush with neck
  • Cut off fret wire using side cutters held parallel to side of fretboard
  • File down edge of frets till level with side of fret board on top and bottom
  • Start flat then bevel inwards to fret board front then repeat till level
  • Use finer file to finish then bevel file to complete

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Fitting Fretboard

  • Block planed top of body till fret board level with neck and sound board. Plane VERY finely set
  • Orbital sand front and sides till smooth
  • Planed and used cabinet scrapers on fret board till it sat flush on sound board
  • Drilled 2 x 1.5 mm holes in back of fret board and inserted two nails and cut off to act as locating pins
  • Glued fret board to neck and clamped with 4 ‘G’ clamps
  • Fret board moved slightly so had to use clamps sideways to relocate
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Week 24 – Things get ugly

Posted on by Iain 'Cutty' Carlin

Fret Board

  • Took off the clamps and wood holding down the frets on the fret board. Unfortunately they didn’t hold in place and all but the 1st fret had to be removed to start again.
  • Sanded back the fret board and reglued one fret after leaving the sanding grit in the fret channel to see if it would hold. Left for 2 hours to dry.
  • Came back after 2 hours and fret still hadn’t stuck
  • Got an off-cut of fret board and sanded enough powder to make a ‘gap-filler’ paste and spread over the side of the fret that needed re-bedding and put on excess glue on frets and re-inserted.
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Week 23 – Fret Board and Bridge

Posted on by Iain 'Cutty' Carlin

Heel Plate

  •  Cut redgum hell plate on band saw
  • Glued to back of heel

Fret board

  • Sanded fret board with 150 to flush pearl inlaysCut frets to width of fret board (decreasing size)
  • Lay out the frets in order of size
  • Set up the fret board clamp by clamping to bench with g-glamps
  • Wipe each fret with small amount of glue and press in with fret clamp
  • Wipe off excess glue as you go
  • Once all fitted, clamp strips of wood across sides of fret board to hold in place

Bridge

  • Bridge sequence – flatten bottom, cut width, plane depth, set depth, set length, cut slot, drill peg holes then cut to shape
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Week 21 – Neck and Fretboard

Posted on by Iain 'Cutty' Carlin

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Fret Board

Started shaping fret board curve. Needs to match curve radius of sanding block (14′)

  • Start by block planeing straight chamfers on either side of fretboard
  • Work back to centreline, but don’t take any height off centre
  • Once nearly at correct curve, sand with 80 then up to 180 to get smooth and curve
  • Mark centre line and punch centre holes for pearl inlay using 6mm drill
  • Glue inlays in place with super glue

 Neck fitting

  • Attach guitar to vacuum clamp and trace round dovetail jig with pen for the groove
  • Michael drilled out the bulk of the wood using a wide drill (but slipped and took a chunk off the front!)
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