Learning Ukulele 50 Sites Top 50 Ukulele Sites Argapa Ukuleles - one size louder: Making bar frets

Saturday, June 14, 2014

Making bar frets

That saucy rosewood spruce combo will get bar frets. I have them on my first soprano and I think they work fine and look cool. I have two different profiles from the hobby shop, 1x3 and 1x4 mm. This fretboard is thick enough for the 4 mm, the slots are 2 mm deep and I need a bit to work with to get the crown profile right. 

First I mess up the bottom edge a bit with a crap knife. 


Then I put a small amount of ca glue in the slot, just a bit of insurance. 


Since they'll recieve some heavy filing I can use a steel hammer to drive them down. 


Then I file the edges so they're flush with the fretboard edge. I also check the fretboard so it's the right width at the nut and 13th (my necks join the body at the 13th fret). The board is clamped to a piece of maple, filing a bowed board will give you a convex edge. 


Then I take down the height. All frets were level but too high so I went at it for a while. After this pic I measured the frets to just over 1 mm, so I rounded them with a small fret file. 


No pics from crowning I'm afraid, and now it's all glued to the neck. 

Oh heck, I didn't take a pic of the back braces either. Or of the back as it went on. 

No comments: