Originally Posted by
Graham McDonald
I take around .5mm/.020" off the edges along the length of the fretboard and round off the rest to fit, ending up with a compound radius. I use a piece of 16mm melamine faced mdf the size of half a sheet of 80grit aluminium oxide paper to put the basic shape on the fretboard already tapered to finished size. A small jig with tapered edges holds the board to a work board for sanding first with the 80 grit and then up to 400 great before fretting. I have no idea what the radius the fretboard ends up, but I really don't think it matters, even if the profile is not perfectly part of an arc. The important thing is that the fretboard is straight along the line of each course of strings. The board is fretted, leaving out the 2nd and the 10th for locating pins, before being glued to the neck.
Bookmarks