RGGR Posted February 25, 2005 Report Share Posted February 25, 2005 What's best way to do a jem vine inlay. Route vine first and do fret slotting later, or other way around. I was thinking taking pre-radiused unslotted fretboard and CNC vine out. Then glue Laser-cut vine in the cavity. And do slotting afterwards. Does this make sense??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnewman Posted February 26, 2005 Report Share Posted February 26, 2005 What's best way to do a jem vine inlay. Route vine first and do fret slotting later, or other way around. I was thinking taking pre-radiused unslotted fretboard and CNC vine out. Then glue Laser-cut vine in the cavity. And do slotting afterwards. Does this make sense??? ← I think nearly everyone doing inlay that covers multiple frets roughs out the fretboard, cuts for the inlay, puts the inlay in, then finishes getting the fretboard perfectly radiused, level, and smooth, then does fretwork. I suppose you could do the slots first, but it'd be a pain in the ass going back over with a really small saw and redoing every slot to cut the inlay. It might really dull the saw, too, depending on your inlay material. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Setch Posted February 26, 2005 Report Share Posted February 26, 2005 Care to supply your reasons for thinking this? I believe most folks actually slot and radius their boards, route and inlay, then level and re-slot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Posted February 26, 2005 Report Share Posted February 26, 2005 I don't think that it makes a particle of difference which way you do it. I've seen plenty of people who do it each way and I think that it is just a matter of personal preference. If you use a preslotted preinstalled fingerboard you absolutely know where everything is going to wind up, but you have a little more troubel with chipping. If you use a raw one you have to be careful with your installation. You just have to be careful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sambo Posted February 26, 2005 Report Share Posted February 26, 2005 Small point, I've seen many people do it with doing fretslots first, this is probabaly easuer to get your inlay positions right for the amateur. But then again, lots of people inlay and slot after (including PRS!) so i think its a matter of taste. With the matters of blunting saws on inlay material, i dont see why it would happen unless you are using things like sterling silver etc. but there we go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clavin Posted February 27, 2005 Report Share Posted February 27, 2005 It matters greatly if you want part of the inlay around either radiused edge to be black pearl, gold pearl, or any other color type of shell which will possibly, and quickly change color as you sand through it. Almosty always when doing inlays I need to make sure the colors stay part of the pattern as I originally chose them to be. If they do change, especially with things like Paua, Green abalone, and black pearl, especially brown lip pearl, your colors will change radically. It's a relative disaster when your blond mermaid turns out having white hair! Or your black areas turn white. Granted it's not a problem for the typical vine, letters, names, etc.. paua, green ab three color and shell type inlay, but for any type of artistic piece where your colors are chosen like paints on a canvass it means everything. There are ways of dealing with the radius to preserve color, and they are not difficult, you also have to choose your shell blanks wisely, and watch where you glue the pattern relative to the color depth of the pearl. C. Lavin www.handcraftinlay.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RGGR Posted February 27, 2005 Author Report Share Posted February 27, 2005 I was asking this question as I wasn't sure how easy it is to position the CNC on/in the fretboard. Meaning....if I have a pre-radiused pre-slotted fretboard.......somehow I have to make sure the CNC cuts rights were I want it to. Meaning CNC in relation to fretslots. The other way around.....I could place fretboard in CNC machine.....center everything......but have some room to manouver up or down the board..... And then with nicely routed vine....I could position fretslots in right place by hand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnewman Posted February 27, 2005 Report Share Posted February 27, 2005 Care to supply your reasons for thinking this? I believe most folks actually slot and radius their boards, route and inlay, then level and re-slot. ← Really? It just seems like you're doing a lot more work without any real benefit if you do it that way. I guess you have to be careful to make sure you don't sand all the way through your inlays, but you could do a bit of radius sanding first to make sure that doesn't happen. I guess I could be wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jer7440 Posted March 1, 2005 Report Share Posted March 1, 2005 I was asking this question as I wasn't sure how easy it is to position the CNC on/in the fretboard. Meaning....if I have a pre-radiused pre-slotted fretboard.......somehow I have to make sure the CNC cuts rights were I want it to. Meaning CNC in relation to fretslots. The other way around.....I could place fretboard in CNC machine.....center everything......but have some room to manouver up or down the board..... And then with nicely routed vine....I could position fretslots in right place by hand. If you are going to cnc this you will need to have it all laid out in a cad drawing. When you do your cad you will have all you fret slots and your inlay design in the drawing. At this point you will be able to make all of you placement adjustments for your inlay. If you buy a preradiused, preslotted board from stewmac or something, make sure you do your cnc work before you taper the board. This will make it much easier to set the board up square to the travels of the cnc machine. Once your board is setup square to the machine travels, all of the cnc programming will be based from one corner of the board, most likely on the nut edge as thats where all the fret measurments are taken from. So if you fret placement in you cad drawing is accurate to your preslotted board everything should come out dandy. I don't know if I answered your question very well, if not let me know and I will try to clarify. Do you have a cnc? If not who is doing this for you? Just curious. Please keep us posted on your progress with this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daveq Posted March 1, 2005 Report Share Posted March 1, 2005 Really? It just seems like you're doing a lot more work without any real benefit if you do it that way. I guess you have to be careful to make sure you don't sand all the way through your inlays, but you could do a bit of radius sanding first to make sure that doesn't happen. I did a jem style vine inlay using brass, gold MOP, and white MOP. I had the board radiused and slotted before I did anything else. That's just the way I did it though. Read the reply from Clavlin above. A major concern with inlaying shell before radiusing the board is that you will have no idea what color or pattern you will end up with. If you pre-radius the board and then inlay, you have a much better idea of how it will look when completed. I realize that most Jem vines are not shell but the general idea of radiusing after doing the inlay does have it's risks. Re-slotting isn't too bad unless you have to do a large portion of the fretboard. Some people take the extra step of removing a bit of the inlay where it meets the slot to prevent it from cracking when pressing the fret wire in - others just remove the tang and glue the fret wire on - and I guess some people just leave it as is and press them in. I'm no inlay expert but I wanted to throw that out there as a possible consideration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnewman Posted March 1, 2005 Report Share Posted March 1, 2005 Read the reply from Clavlin above. A major concern with inlaying shell before radiusing the board is that you will have no idea what color or pattern you will end up with. If you pre-radius the board and then inlay, you have a much better idea of how it will look when completed. I realize that most Jem vines are not shell but the general idea of radiusing after doing the inlay does have it's risks. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I guess the problem is that I'd never imagine doing anything complicated enough where I'd need specific hair colors . Clavin does make a good point, I didn't really read down past Setch's reply when I posted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LWiedenman Posted March 14, 2005 Report Share Posted March 14, 2005 "Re-slotting isn't too bad unless you have to do a large portion of the fretboard. Some people take the extra step of removing a bit of the inlay where it meets the slot to prevent it from cracking when pressing the fret wire in - others just remove the tang and glue the fret wire on - and I guess some people just leave it as is and press them in. I'm no inlay expert but I wanted to throw that out there as a possible consideration" Right. I've never had a problem with cracking the inlay while putting the frets in. For me this is the real concern: At some point those frets are going to come out to be redone. If the tangs on the frets dig into the inlay, the inlay will break and come out with the frets - a nightmare. So, it's always a good idea to keep the inlay 1/2mm or so away from the edge of the fret slot, just be sure that it still lies underneath the crown of the wire. As for myself. I prefer having the frets marked with a line, then doing the inlay, then having the slots cut. Otherwise you have to clean the glue out, which seems to be no big deal either, but then I'm not a luthier. If you would rather cut the slots first so you know exactly where they are. Let the glue set up for your inlay for 5-10 seconds (pressure activates CA glue) then blow the excess glue out of the slot with compressed air. You'll have less mess to clean up inside of the slot. But make sure to mask off the sides of the neck or fingerboard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.