Fret board slotting

[Jessbusenitz]

I'm thinking about slotting my own finger boards and wanted to see how people who know what there doing, do it. Any picture of your rigs/jigs would be appreciated Thanks!

Merry Christmas
Jess

[fishtownmike]

I use a stew mac saw and jig plus a template they sell for mandolins. You attach the fingerboard to the template and there is a guide pin in the box. You set it with the pin then cut the slot and move up one notch. It's a easy method. Some use a similar jig by luthiers mercantile and then some use a table saw with the template and a special circular saw blade and accomplish the same thing just faster. Here are links to both jigs below. templates are on different page..Mike
http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Fretting...Miter_Box.html
http://www.lmii.com/CartTwo/thirdpro...lotting+System

[Bill Snyder]

I print out a template using WFret and glue it to the fret board. I then use a little miter box I made just for this. It is not very fast, but it works well.
If I did more of these I would be tempted to get the tablesaw setup.

[fishtownmike]

The wfret program is very good. I have used this before. I was using a standard miter box but I got the stew mac jig just because i felt my miter box wasn't as accurate because of play in the slot compared to the jig. You can still use the wfret program for your layouts and the stew mac jig. This is a cheaper option because the stew mac templates are $40.00 each....Mike

[Rob Grant]

Here's a photo of my fretboard slotting rig with a few mods. I bought the box from Stew Mac years ago. The templates, I believe, came from L.M.I.

[Michael Lewis]

Early on I cut my fingerboards by hand, then made a miter box, and then graduated to buying pre-slotted boards. A few years ago I moved up again to the table saw system. All these systems work, how much money do you want to spend, and how many boards are you going to cut? If you need 20 boards per month or more you would do well to go to the table saw system, but anything less than that can be cut by hand. It's not a big deal once you know what you are doing. Maybe you can find some luthier fairly local that has a set up to cut your fingerboards. It is less expensive to pay for some labor than to buy a table saw and the rest of the set up.

[j. condino]

I've used the LMI system for about a dozen years, currently hooked up to my mint 1954 Unisaw tablesaw (complete with all the shiny chrome and art deco badges!). It is the same one used in most of the production shops and factories around the country. Incredibly accurate, amazingly simple, and you'll likely pay for itself with the first dozen 'boards you slot. For me the additional benefit is that I can slot any material I want, any time of the day. I also love using the .023" kerf sawblade for cutting delicate veneers.

Jess: if you filled out more of your profile, we'd know which "holler" you lived down and likely be able to direct you to someone pretty close where you could checkout one of these systems or do the slotting for you. If it is anywhere near Asheville, stop by for a couple of laughs and a bit of mandolin nerdiness and you can checkout the LMI system. It takes about two minutes to slot a perfect board. Prior to using this system, I tried a LOT of different methods. Too my ear, I could always find a few errors in the intonation. Since switching to this, all of that dissappeared. Pretty sweet for the relatively low investment.

j.
www.condino.com

[Jessbusenitz]

grandcanyonminstrel, thanks for the offer. Unfortunately I don't live very close to you. I live northwest of Wichita Ks, I'm 18 and I've been tinkering for a couple years so I'm a newbie to most of this. The LMI system looks pretty good. What aprox. would a table saw jig run? Thanks! Jess

[Mario Proulx]

The table saw jig is free; you can make it from scraps you have laying around the shop. All you need is the blade and a template.

Count me as another table saw user. I did a few on a radial arm saw, but there was too much "play" for my tastes.

Y'all using wfret, be aware that printers aren't always accurate, and they can vary from day to day, even, and paper will swell and stretch, in different directions, when gluing it. Best to measure carefully to be sure. Better yet, us wfret to carefully lay out a master template on aluminum or Plexiglas if you don't want to buy a machined template, or you need a custom scale that is otherwise unavailable..

[j. condino]

Jess:

I build my first guitar when I was 12 and have been hooked every since. Stay with it and have fun.

Mario is correct- you can make your own slotting system pretty easily. If you have an accurate fingerboard that was cut someplace else, you can also make your template from it with no extra cost or you can use the offcut as the live template. Some people worry about movement in an ebony template. Ebony boards move, and even lexan moves a bit. I've used actual fingerboards to replicate a fesh lexan template. Just keep your process orderly and methodical and you'll work it out quite well.

j.
www.condino.com

[Jessbusenitz]

Do y'all use LMI's blade or stewmac's? Stewmac's dosn't require a blade stiffner, so it would be cheaper than LMI's, Any other advantages? If you have a picture of your tablesaw jig that would be appreciated.

[fishtownmike]

Here's a photo of my fretboard slotting rig with a few mods. I bought the box from Stew Mac years ago. The templates, I believe, came from L.M.I.

Are you sure the templates are from LMI. I asked if these would work with the stew mac jig on this forum and was told no by a few people. I would like to use some of theirs but don't want to buy them is they won't work....Mike

[Mario Proulx]

Anyt emplate, even home made, should work; the slot sizes may vary, but that just means you need to swap out the locating pin.

I use the LMI blade; I already have stiffeners. I've also used the small "key slotting" blades from MSC at one time, though I had to open the hole from 1/2" to 5/8".

Improvise, Son!

[Rob Grant]

I'm pretty sure the templates are L.M.I. (it has been a long time). The indexing pin on the box is my own design and not the original.

[mandolinplucker]

I am pretty low tech on cutting fret slots. I build an occasional ukulele and have only built 1 scratch mandolin so I don't mind the time it takes to hand cut frets. I found a small japanese style pull cut saw with a .023 kerf at harbor freight for about seven bucks. I made a miter box out of scraps. as mentioned before, if you cut the saw slot after you make the box the saw makes a wider kerf and allows some slop. A pull cut saw has no set in the teeth so the kerf is the same size as the width of the blade. I made the sides of the miter box from 4 pieces of wood. I glued two pieces in place at one end, then put the saw against them and then glued the other two pieces butted up against the saw. That made the saw slot tight enough that there is no slop. I get the fret spacing from stew mac. I use a digital caliper to measure. Make the measurements from the nut. If you measure from fret to fret, any mistake will be amplified all of the way down the board. I mark the depth of cut on the saw blade and cut away. It's slow and you have to be careful but it works. If I did more I would use a more efficient method but for what I do now it works fine for me. Be careful with the depth, it would be easy to cut through the board.

[SteveB]

I use the stewmac miter box. I'm not happy with the saw and find it a little difficult to control. I recently noticed that they are offering a japanese saw now and think I am going to pick up one of those. I am currently building around 6 mandos a year, so can't justify the table saw setup, but wish I could. Also, limited room or value for a table saw in my small shop.

[Joe Mendel]

Count me in the LMI Tablesaw corner, also. It's easy, fast & accurate. I've use both LMI's blade w/stiffeners & Stew Mac's blade, I haven't noticed any difference in the finished fingerboards.
All you really need is a table saw, the blade & templates, you can make everything else pretty easily.

[Jim Hilburn]

I adapted a the Stew-Mac blade and pin template to a 7.5" Makita slider miter saw since I've never owned a table saw. It's the smallest compound anyone has ever made and the 6" blade worked fine on it.
I've also made a couple of my own templates for octave and 5-string electric.

[Jessbusenitz]

I'm trying to picture this in my mind, does the jig run on the table saw's miter gauge slots? How do you hook the index pin up to your jig? Sorry for all the probably dumb questions. Jess

[Joe Mendel]

I made a sled that runs in both miter gauge slots, using miter bars similar to these: http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?p...r=miter%20slot you can adjust them so there is no slop in the sled.
I used one inch particle board for the bed and fence. You can buy a pin and bushing from LMI to position the template, but you could make something that works just well yourself. The guide just needs to fit the template. LMI used to sell plans for the sled, but I didn't see them listed just now.
The most important things are that there is no slop as you make your cuts & the cuts are square to the center-line of the fingerboard. I cut the slots before I taper the fingerboards.

[Jim Hilburn]

There are some Youtube vids on the subject. Much of the YT stuff about building is electric guitar oriented.