Do you make your own jigs or do you buy them?

[PRSpoggers]

Hey, so I noticed in my introduction to luthiery that there are a lot of jigs that you need for certain things. The one I need right now is a fret slotting jog. So naturally, I go to Stewmac and LMII and they were almost 300 dollars! Now me, being only 15 years old, and having asked my parents for a lot for my neck project, I don't think another 300 dollars isn't what they want to do, and right before Christmas. Now, I was sitting in class and the idea came to me, I saw that the jigs had ball bearings for the guide for the blade. I basically made a layout to where its a base and two side walls big and wide enough to accept a fretboard blank. The blade will go through the ball bearing slot and slot the frets perfectly. All the measurements will be notched off on the fretboard. Leave your thoughts below.

[ADFinlayson]

You don't need a fret slotting jig, I've done all my fretboards freehand with a fret saw 

 

[curtisa]

The thing about the Stewmac mitre box is that it also requires the matching fret slotting templates, which will set you back another $50 each.

As @ADFinlayson shows, it is possible to freehand the fret slots, but you'd have to be comfortable in yourself that you could pull it off successfully.

Another alternative is to print out a full size layout of a fretboard using FretFind2d or @Polymaker's Sigen program, attach the print directly to the fretboard using spray adhesive and saw along the printed fret lines. If you felt you needed some extra accuracy insurance you could create a temporary saw guide by clamping a block of wood along each printed fret and carefully run the blade up against the vertical face of the block while sawing.

[PRSpoggers]

4 hours ago, curtisa said:

The thing about the Stewmac mitre box is that it also requires the matching fret slotting templates, which will set you back another $50 each.

As @ADFinlayson shows, it is possible to freehand the fret slots, but you'd have to be comfortable in yourself that you could pull it off successfully.

Another alternative is to print out a full size layout of a fretboard using FretFind2d or @Polymaker's Sigen program, attach the print directly to the fretboard using spray adhesive and saw along the printed fret lines. If you felt you needed some extra accuracy insurance you could create a temporary saw guide by clamping a block of wood along each printed fret and carefully run the blade up against the vertical face of the block while sawing.

I got a miter box with a 90 degree slot so I think I'm good. I just need to get a saw and the scale template, match up the lines and trace them and cut and I'm set!