David's Guitar Building: Fingerboard slotting....

Yesterday I got a chance to hear the SJ body tap sounds now that it is all closed up. I am really happy with how resonant it is. First off, the back and top have almost the exact same tone sound. This was what I was shooting for by tapping the top and carving braces as I went. I kept comparing the top and back to get them as close as I could. I was a bit nervous however because I know that things change once the box is closed up. I was quite excited to tap the back, then the top and hear almost the exact same sound. None of my other guitars have done this. Now I hope I can keep it that way as I sand down the top. My plan is to sand the edges down so the top is thickest around the bridge plate, and then it gradually thins out at the edges. My thinking is that this will make the top loosen up a bit allowing for a more deep bass sound.

Anyways once I was done with all my tapping (if people could have seen me they probably would have though I taken a step too far into the deep end of the pool!) I flush trimmed the body and peg head back veneer. I still need to figure out a way to thin the ebony top veneer so I can get the peg head to the 13 -14mm thickness I want. I will think on it. I then decided to get to work on the fingerboard. I first needed to straighten out the edges and cut one end to a perfect 90 degree angle from one side. This will be the nut end and it needs to be as perfect as possible. I used my router station to get two straight edges and then my table saw with a miter gauge to get a 90 degree cut. Once that was done, I ran into the house to print up a fret slot template using the little program wfret that I picked up online a few months ago. This little program is great. You can put in any scale length you want in it as well as how many frets you want, and it will give you a list of measurements both from the nut, and from the preceding fret. The real magic of this program however is it will print out a template based on these measurements. I took the list and template back to the shop. I cut the template out, taped the pieces together to get a full scale template, and then checked it with my micrometer to make sure it was exact, and that my taped parts were perfect. Once that was done, I put it on my fingerboard blank, took it to my slotting jig on the table saw, and cut the slots. I checked them afterwords and it was dead on perfect. Every slot was within a few thousands of each other, and the measurement from the nut to #20 was within 3/1000 from the template. I would consider this to be as close to perfect as a person without a CNC mill can get. Next up, neck shaping and fingerboard radiusing/cutting.

I ripped these pieces of purpleheart from a blank I had for binding material. They are .1"x.25"x32" each. The wood is very purple in color, but after holding it up against the guitar body I decided I am not going to use it on this one. It just blends in too much with the sides and they wouldn't be visible. I think I will stick with my original plan to use the curly maple. I will look around online a bit for some other ideas though just in case there might be something out there that would look better. As for the purpleheart strips, I will save them for another build where the sides are a lighter color.

The body all glued up and routed flush. It is starting to look like a guitar!

The back. I really like the wild look of this wood. It should really look good under finish.

The peg head with the back veneer glued up and trimmed flush. Unfortunately it slid a tiny bit to one side which makes the volute not straight. Not a big deal though, I can just sand and chisel the other side out to even it out.

Here you can see how much thicker the top veneer is than the back veneer. The piece I had for the back veneer was this thick but after a few trips through my new drum sander, it was a lot thinner. I just wish I could send the neck through the sander to get the top thin! Oh well, I guess some elbow grease will get the job done!

This is how I straighten the edges of the finger board. First I run one side through this way, then I flip it and do the other side. I then run it through, and flip it one more time to get the other side straight and parallel. The averages of the high and low points along the fence cancel each other out and get a straight cut. This works on relatively short and thin wood, but any thick or long pieces really need a jointer or a good jointing plane to get it done right.

This is the template and measurement list that wfret prints out.

I double checked my taping with my micrometer to make sure I have everything lined up correctly. I also checked every fret measurement against the list just to make sure every thing is perfect.

Note that I marked the end of the board that is perfectly square for the nut. It is really easy to get the wrong side if you don't have a reference mark.