Fret Slotting Questions

[rubber314chicken]

how good is the slotting they do for you at lmi? is it very accurate?

[GregP]

I got a pair of boards slotted by LMI and they were purrfick.

[six_stringer]

I recently bought two 27" baritone fretboards from them. One is Maple and the other is Rosewood. They both look very nice. However, when I talked to the rep about the depth of the slot he said it would be plenty deep. I told him I have had other fretboards where the slots had to be recut to make up for radiusing.

They don't radius their Maple boards but do radius their Rosewood boards. I had to recut the Maple's slots because they were too shallow. The slots in the Radiused Rosewood board are deeper than the Maple.

Edited July 20, 2007 by six_stringer

[GregP]

One of mine was ebony and the other rosewood, both pre-radiused as well as pre-slotted. The slots were indeed plenty deep for the pre-radiused ones; however, I can't speak to the flat boards.

[Jon]

I've ordered 3 boards from them in the past - none were slotted deep enough, although all were slotted precise to the scale. Part of the reason I'm trying to get into the business is because of them, because I'm tired of having my orders screwed up. Every order but my first from LMI has been messed up in one way or another.

*shrug* If you want to pay $9 for slots you may or may not need to reslot, take the gamble.

[RGGR]

Every order but my first from LMI has been messed up in one way or another.

Not overly excited about their services either. They have f*cked up a couple of my orders too.

Not leaving enough room for toplock nut (while specificly stated in instructions)

Ebony boards of not the right quality (light streaks in the board).

Fretslots not deep enough.

Besides the fretslots, they have corrected my order(s) and resend me new boards. This speaks for them.

They do correct their mistakes. But in my book it should have been good the first time.

[erikbojerik]

My very first scratch guitar project used an LMI board, slotted & radiused. Slots were fine, the radius was not centered down the board (thinner on the bass side).

Ebony boards of not the right quality (light streaks in the board).

Almost all ebony is like that these days, it is Gabon ebony. The light streaks don't detract from the "quality" per se, just uniformity of color. Chances are the board they sent you to replace that one was just dyed black, a pretty common thing to do.

The really dense jet black ebony from back in the day is Madagascar ebony, but it is pretty tough to find. Gabon can sometimes get like that, but it also tends to have a more open grain than Madagascar.

Edited July 20, 2007 by erikbojerik

[rubber314chicken]

hmmm... what about alternatives to a fretsaw. because I really don't wanna spen the money too ship them my board (I bought one I liked, so I would like it), and have it slotted and shipped back only to have to do more slotting (I don't have a fretsaw). any cheap saw with a .023 (or even a .025) kerf?

[tubab0y]

StewMac seems to do it's preslotted pre-radiused boards correctly- the one I've used was radiused correctly and slotted plenty deep for their fretwire.

[johnsilver]

I've bought probably a dozen fretboards from LMI - ebony mostly but also rosewood and maple. I've bought them flat and radiused but all slotted - 3 different scales. All have been high quality and accurately cut.

The slots were all cut to appropriate depth when they arrived. After I radius/sand/inlay, sometimes I've needed to increase slot depth. For that, I bought the fret cutting saw from StewMac for $24 (0.023" kerf). I use it to clean out slots and to increase depth if needed.