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Old 10-18-2020, 12:06 AM
Arumako Arumako is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2016
Posts: 25
Default Prepping the fret board

Had a chance to spend a bit more time prepping the fret board this weekend. Hope you all don't mind my sharing my progress. Sourced this beautiful 3A rosewood fingerboard from my supplier, and the first order of business was to flatten one of the sides. Really just a lot of sanding for this portion of the project.

My work bench is actually a round dining room table and while it's not a REAL carpenter's workbench it's folding sides really helps in my super cramped hackshop/office. It's also super flat and works perfectly for this kind of application. Been using this table for 15 years, but still need to measure for flatness just in-case there's any warping.

Double-stick tape some 220 grit metal sandpaper (more expensive than wood sandpaper but quicker work), and sand the bottom flat. After spending about an hour flattening the bottom, the fret board is rough cut and directly taped on to the flat table. Then it's radiused with 60 grit (wood) sandpaper using my 12" radiusing block.

You can see the pitting in the fret board from the planing done at my suppliers shop. Some areas are pretty deep so this is going to be a long sanding process!

After some sanding the edges begin to take shape and the coloration clearly identify areas that need work. Each sanding stroke needs to cover the entire fret board. It's tempting to concentrate on the areas with more pitting, but that will throw the lengthwise flatness of the fret board off. Long, consistent, precise strokes combined with frequent lengthwise flatness verification is crucial.

Cleaning the sandpaper frequently is also quite important. At first the paper only loads on the fringes; but once the paper starts loading all the way across as shown in the photo, I know I'm making consistent progress. Too much loading on the sandpaper may cause the wood to get gouged. As the sanding continues the beauty of the wood really begins to stand out. The nut end of the fret board is radiused just-right; but the sanding still needs to cover the entire length of the fret board.

Just a little bit more to go... Man, this rosewood is just beautiful! The elimination of the discoloration indicates that the radiusing is complete. It's still a rough job up to this point, but it's important to verify the lengthwise flatness. Also, the radiusing sanding block is moved over the fretboard to ensure there's no light that seeps through at any point.

After 2 hours or so, the rough radiusing is complete and the fret board is flat and straight. It sits on top of the neck with no gaps and the neck angle is perfect! YES!

By rough radiusing the fret board, my fret slots can be cut with the same radius as the fret board. When the frets are installed, there's no gap between the bottom of the fret tang and the fretboard under the middle section of each fret. It all fits nicely with no need to use super glue as a filler. The old masters didn't even need to use glue to keep the frets in place!

The fret board really is perfectly suited for a Japanese guitar of this vintage. I can't be more pleased! However, before installation, the fret slots need to be cut and the binding installed. To do this, I'll need to make a custom jig based on the shape of the flat side of the neck. Then finalize the fret board shape and fret slot depth, add binding, then finalize the fret board radius with 1000 grit sandpaper... then, I can glue the fret board onto the neck and continue from there...whew another productive weekend!

Just received the vintage tuning pegs (really hard to find!) that fit perfectly too! Woohoo! Thanks for letting me share AGF!
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