Using a piece of redoak for a neck and before gluing placed the fretboard piece wood on top(just getting it ready.)..the standard 1.5 3/4 neck is about a good 16th off wider fthan the fretboard piece I checked other pieces of fretboard wood so it's the neck itself..It's gonna be a 3 string with frets but now I'm not sure whether to try and sand the neck side before placing a fretboard piece of wood and frets. Would you glue the fretboard on sand the side flush then fret or try to sand the side of the neck before gluing the extra piece of fretboard wood? Unfortunately the neck is already got a headstock etc or I'd just start over...
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Take your electric belt sander with 80 grit, clamp it upside down in your vice sanding belt up and you can do the ends of the frets, relieve the edge of the fret board, AND narrow down the neck to a perfect match.
Someone else here posted a short video of just that and my jaw dropped, he did in 3 min what took me 3 hours by hand the night before.
I have had the problem of one or the other being too wide. After a closer look at the stock at Home Depot, I found that the Red Oak is always wider that the Alder fret board and the Poplar varies a lot in width. I match the two right in the store before buying and that has solved that problem.
Probably the only time I didn't...and only time I actually needed to..
All the other times weren't a hurry at all. I basically wasted 3 crucial days...can't do veneer or fine tune a cheap plane....it's ditch and repeat...on this one. My son is helping I'm beat
Glue the fretboad up, dead centre on the neck - use veneer pins or staples driven in to the neck and clipped off to leave about 1/16" protruding - that will stop the glue joint floating about and keep it all in line during clamping. Trim the neck down with a plane....no power tools needed. You haven't got a plane? - then buy one, you can't do any woodwork without such a basic tool. You can pick them up off eBay, yard sales etc. very cheaply. Learn how to set it up and sharpen the blade and if you've bought a half-decent make such as Stanley or Record you'll have a tool that will last you, and future generations, a lifetime. Two minutes on both sides and the job will be done with very little physical effort needed, and no power tools involved. It drives me nuts when folk start asking what power tool to use for the simplest of tasks, when they haven't got the basic woodwork skills of using (and very importantly, learning how to set-up and sharpen) a plane, chisel and spokeshave. Hand sanding is for final finishing, not reducing the thickness of timber, but with a well-set-up plane you'll hardly need to touch it with sandpaper after the trimming is done. The plane is the bedrock of basic woodworking, you need at least one in your workshop...I've got five of them, different sizes and types, all gifted to me or picked up for pocket money prices. I've also got a load of power workshop tools these days, but my first 200 guitars were made mainly by hand re-sawing reclaimed and scrap timber and bringing it to size with Record jack and try planes. Put a little muscle and sweat into your guitars, not electricity!
Replies
Take your electric belt sander with 80 grit, clamp it upside down in your vice sanding belt up and you can do the ends of the frets, relieve the edge of the fret board, AND narrow down the neck to a perfect match.
Someone else here posted a short video of just that and my jaw dropped, he did in 3 min what took me 3 hours by hand the night before.
I have had the problem of one or the other being too wide. After a closer look at the stock at Home Depot, I found that the Red Oak is always wider that the Alder fret board and the Poplar varies a lot in width. I match the two right in the store before buying and that has solved that problem.
All the other times weren't a hurry at all. I basically wasted 3 crucial days...can't do veneer or fine tune a cheap plane....it's ditch and repeat...on this one. My son is helping I'm beat
Don't scrap it,what I suggested doesn't take long,fret it and edge it then glue it on using pins or staples like Chickenbone John says.
Plane the fingerboard until it is 4mm narrower than the neck,fret it then glue on 2mm thick styrene strip to each edge,like this
Been wanting to try "binding" the edges of the fretboard. Where do you get the 2mm styrene strip and what do suppose we call it in the US?
Can you sand the styrene to make everything feel perfect?
You can buy the strip from model shops,some of the strip I have used is manufactured by Evergreen Scale Models in the USA.
It can be sanded,but mostly I use a sharp knife as a scraper
Thanks. I'm on it...
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