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Cable tie frets

I was looking for a way to mark out the frets on a lap steel I'm building and thought this might be of some use to others building any type of fretless guitar.

After marking out and cutting the slots like I would do if using fret wire, I used a hacksaw to widen the slots out to hold a 4" plastic cable tie. The hacksaw blade was the perfect size.I cut the slot deep enough to allow 3/4 of the cable tie to set in the slot. I then drilled out the fret markers and used white glue to install the ties and markers. Simply run a bead of glue over the slot and push the tie down and across with your finger. This will spread the glue evenly in the slot. A damp paper towel was all that was needed to clean the glue off the board.After allowing the glue to dry, I cut off the ends of the cable ties and sanded everything flush going up to 320 grit. A palm sander could be used to knock the plastic ties down even with the board, but I simply used a sanding block. The plastic works down pretty fast. A few coats of Danish oil to seal the board and this is the results.These cable ties come in many different colors and are pretty cheap to buy. As the picture above showed, I cut the large markers out of a medium black pick with a 1/4" paper punch.

I'm very happy with the way it turned out. You could put a thin strip of wood on each side of the board to give it a binding look and cover the ends of the ties, but I'm leaving this one as is. I hope this has been helpful and someone gets some use from it.

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Comment by Jose Manuel Irala on November 18, 2015 at 2:23am: Fantastic idea. Thanks

Comment by Rooster on November 18, 2015 at 2:03am: Thanks Paul..........great idea on the side markers.

Comment by Paul Craig on November 17, 2015 at 9:21pm: I usually make my side markers out of colored pencil lead and the top markers from plastic coat hangers or wood dowels.

The pick material is good and pickguards work well too. Like the zip tie idea.