Fretboard pt. 2

I am lagging behind a bit in reporting the progress, all these pics are a few days old but what can one do. 

First pic is me laying out positions for some holes, using a very nice pair of dividers with a split nut. You need a few of these, trust me. The rule is just to keep the lines straight. 

Then over to the miniscule drill press, a Proxxon. So much better than a Dremel I hesitate to even compare them, but the latter has an industry standard thread at the front, allowing different adapters to be used. 

But what’s it for? For storing frets. I will cut the tangs back a bit, the weather’s warm and a bit humid so I foresee the fretboard shrinking a bit in the future. And then it’ll be much easier to knock back the ends if the tangs aren’t protruding. All this means I need to keep the frets sorted by length. 

Somehow (I know how) I missed taking a pic of actually cutting the tangs with my Stewmac fret nipper, but I’ll show that next time. Next pic shows me clamping a fret in using my version of a Jaws press. 

And once again aligning the board with rulers…

… before clamping it in place. 

Fretboard pt. 1

I’ve been mucking around a bit with the fretboard while waiting for glue to dry in other places, now I have loads of progress to share. I’ll split it into two installments. 

First pic is the rosewood board running through the drum sander. It was close to thickness already so I just needed the marks from the bandsaw to be gone. 

Then masking tape is applied to the underside of the board, and to the top of the fretboard. CA-glue holds the strips of tape together and everything in place. 

It was fiddly to set the depth stops to the exact depth, and the same depth, but I managed. I remember buying this expensive bit of kit from Stewmac, three weeks after the purchase they released their upgraded model with bearings and knurled thumb screws. I was fuming then and if I’m completely honest I’m still fuming. 

See? This is what we want. 

In a flash of inspiration I came up with the pattern for the inlays. I drill straight through and use plastic rods that I cut flush with a chisel. 

And sawing to width and the correct taper. The edges were planed after sawing. 

And this is where I’ll leave you for now. Fretting is underway and I dare promise that post will be gripping. 

Back glued on

It was time to glue the back on. I cut it out a bit oversized and aligned it with some small cleats from a kerfed lining strip. 

Then the glue was applied and spread out with the wee roller. In the back you can see a piece from an extra skeleton, to be used as a clamping caul. 

A rare shot of the Argapanator himself, thanks to me having company in the workshop for once. 

With a layer of foam I found kicking around and that skeleton half as the caul I clamped it up. 

And some excess glue was cleaned off and removed. Paralell to this I got cracking on the fretboard, but that’ll come in the next post. Fanx for reading!