ryeisnotcool2 Posted July 8, 2003 Report Posted July 8, 2003 Well i bought it last week, though expensive it works very well! its fairly quick also. i did a fret board in about 15 min. so this tool will definetly pay for itself very soon! It takes a little time to set up at first but once its set up correctly its a breeze. The quality is 4 out of 5. over all im very happy with it. I give it **** *-crap **-not as crap ***-decent ****-really good *****-awsome!! Quote
krazyderek Posted July 8, 2003 Report Posted July 8, 2003 i baught one, and the first one they sent men, one of the side plates were bent so it kinda threw off the squarness. I also didn't realize they weren't square out of the box, lucky for me i discovered this after making an entire fretboard crooked so i was quite disatisfied, so i called and wated another, which they sent and it arrived about a week later. it took me about an hour to get it resonably square, but i still have to use a carpenters square to draw a centerline on the board after all the frets slots are cut, which is usualy not parallel with the jointed edge of the board. I called them about this, cause in my opinion a mitter box should be shipped ina usable state, i mean look at those rinky dink wooden ones that have 90, 45 and 45(the other direction) you can get them from the hardware store and they cut to the right angles, but nooooo something that's 10 times more is thrown together on an assembly line and it's up to the comsumer that's paying to much in the first place to struggle for 2 hours just to get a "fairly" square mitter box So IMO for a tool that is supposed to be used for such precise work, they should really re think how they manufacture and set them up. i mean for about half the price i coudla just thrown some peices of steel together inaccuratly with the same type adjustability screw holes and spent the same amount of time setting it up. so my rating a more then generous**½* but i would not buy this product again, or at least till they improve the design and factory setup Quote
ryeisnotcool2 Posted July 8, 2003 Author Report Posted July 8, 2003 sorry to hear that derek, your right that it shouldnt cost so much! but i have no problems with mine the one side of the box is set to not adjust and then the other is adjustable. and i know its a silly question but when you started , was your fretboard material a perfectly parralel peice? i started with mine at 2 1/4" x 19"x 1/4" and i had no problems. the reason its adjustable is so that if you are using a differnt thickness saw you can adjust the guides. i used the .025" saw but im sure there are different ones also. that stinks that the first one was bent Quote
krazyderek Posted July 8, 2003 Report Posted July 8, 2003 yup, it was cut to just fit in the box perfectly so i would have the slots perfectly square with the sides.... pffff there goes that idea, so now i always use the first and 24th fret slots along with a square to find the centerline and then glue it to the neck according to that line... cause all the frets in between are going to be crooked the same amount.... Quote
ryeisnotcool2 Posted July 8, 2003 Author Report Posted July 8, 2003 I would call stew mac again and tell them. let them know what your problems are. i would think they would send you a new one. you should not have to go through all that trouble when doing a fret board, ive only done my second one last night and it was fairly easy. the first one i did was with a pre-made fret board from stew-mac. that went well also, but intsead of paying 25$ for a fret board i payed 6$ for enough Wenge to do 2 boards plus have a lot extra for inlays and binding! so i will save in the long run! but i think if you contact them and are POLITE then they will help you and if i where you i'd try to get a new miterbox and get the price reduced because of all your troubles! and tell them about the fret boards that were ruined, maybe they will replace that also! they should. good luck! and let me know how you do. Quote
krazyderek Posted July 9, 2003 Report Posted July 9, 2003 dude, read my first post.... i did call them and bitch, i talked to one of the tech's that actually helped design it, they did send me a new one, but i still could only align the new one to "fairly" accurate.. i'm probably just overly fussy, i want my fret slots to be PERFECTLY square to the center of the guitar, like when i measure them to see if they're square with the side of the board i use a magnifying glass to look at it. like if the fret slot was a foot long, then it might be off by 1/32, or 1/64th, but i guess i'm just weird, i can see those little tiny things. and i didn't ruine the first board, it was savable on a 6 string neck, but the deviation on the center line was to great for it to be used on the 7 string neck it was meant for.... so no biggy, i'm just not a bit stew mac fan.. Quote
krazyderek Posted October 6, 2003 Report Posted October 6, 2003 Ok, well it came time to slot another fingerbaord and i happened to just find my dad's old machinest sqaure (a really good square made pf solid hardended steel) and i spent a good 20 minutes tinkering with the Stew mac Mitter box, and i finaly got it squared up perfectly. Now that i have it set up perfectly i guess it won't be so much of a paper weight, however i still feel they should come set up for perfect 90 degree cuts if you're also using/ordering the stew mac 0.024 fret saw. Quote
daveq Posted October 7, 2003 Report Posted October 7, 2003 I bought one a while ago (as a set) and only got one of the pieces. After calling them, they sent the remaining pieces right away. This was the first time they have ever screwed up an order of mine (I've ordered quite a bit from them). As for the quality of the tool - so far no complaints. I never really looked at it as a substitute for a CNC - type machine but more as a way to play around with some oddball fretboards. I know some people don't care for stewmac due to prices and they way they seem to lock you into buying specialty tools that go with their tools. I'm glad they exist. They are very fast and quite reliable when it comes to getting you your stuff. I think the Erlewine videos are a waste of money but their tools are worth the money (mostly). The one instance of a poorly designed tool from stewmac that I ran into was the infamous "useless center line" in one of their routing templates. To sum it up, there is a dotted line on the template that is NOT supposed to be used at all. The alignment is done by eye (matching in line with two holes) but it can be very misleading if you are not careful. That's my only bitch about stewmac's tools so far. Quote
Guest Litchfield Custom Gutars Posted October 8, 2003 Report Posted October 8, 2003 I made mine out of billet aluminum cuz A.) I think theirs is too expensive, and B.) I'm a cheap bastard Quote
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