Fretboard ends

Hi gang! (Both of you.) I have been busy on many weekends since it’s hunting season in Sweden, but some progress is made. Li really liked the concept I use for the fretboard ends on resos, so she ordered a similar style for her soprano. In the pic I’m roughing out the shape with a coping saw. 

And the end result*.



The walnut fretboard of the tenor wanted a wee slope on the middle part. Would you believe I’m just now getting used to files? After more than 40 years of neglect and lack of respect. 



I place fret dot markers, and let two of the rods go through and into the neck to stop the fretboard from sliding around when I glue it in place. 



*The pun is always intended. And often arrived at after hard work and deliberation. 

Inlays, and woes

I got cracking on the inlays. Li gets her name at the 12th fret, the resos get a symbol that will sort of go over the 12th. I routed out the channels with my Proxxon router. 

And the wee symbol I chose for the twins’ fretboards. I routed those freehand and they turned out ok. 



Then I mixed some milliput and filled the cavities. I’ve done that before with great results, it turns hard and sort of bone white. It’s supposed to harden in 12 hours...



... but that old shite had gone old and turned to, you guessed it, shite. Here I am digging it all out after a week or so. I’ve since proceeded to fill with another material. Can’t believe the limited shelf life, I mean what’s six years?!

Fretboards

I picked out ebony fretboards for the Li’s soprano and the soprano reso. The tenor reso gets a walnut fretboard. There were some scratches from the drum sander so I hit them with the Mirka vacuum sanding pad. 

Then I planed the edges with my Stanley no.6. This is important as it must fit along the edge of the template and be snug in the jig. 

And forget about double-stick tape. Last time I used it it messed up the surface of the template and the goo is still there. Now all cool luthiers are using the masking tape and superglue trick. Matching strips of tape on the piece and the jig, rub them down with something hard (most often the base of the glue bottle), then some drops of glue on one part and a shot of the accelerator spray on the other. Press together and it sticks stronger than double-stick tape and won’t leave sticky residue. 

The fret saw jig takes less than two hours to set up, but not way less. It was quite expensive and it’s cumbersome to use, and right after I bought it they made an upgraded version with roller bearings and thumb screw adjustments. I like the template but it needs two small strips of thin plywood wedged in to keep the setup rigid. You can see a strip in the top corner. 

So all things considered, not a great piece of kit I’m afraid. 

Doing the actual sawing takes 10 minutes. 

And speaking of fretboards - it’s no good keeping a bunch of faulty ones taking up space in the workshop. I got these from a well meaning dude in Italy six years ago, he’d bought them from a supplier but found the scale length to be shorter than what he wanted. So he sent them to me as I was dabbling with piccolos. But sadly they were crap, the frets were placed all wonky. 

So I put them to better use this weekend... 

... and grilled a side of ribs from a deer I bagged last week.