How deep do I set my fret saw stopper?

[PRSpoggers]

I am attempting my first ever neck from the ground up and need to cut fret slots. I have the stew mac japanese fret saw and depth stop. However, how much do I set my fret stopper to the depths that a fret will seat? I am doing a 17 inch radius so fairly flat. I heard half the thickness of the board for fret cutting but I don't know. I consulted trade secrets and that kind of helped me.

[curtisa]

Slightly deeper than the depth of the tangs on your fret wire. Anything less and the frets won't go in properly. Anything more...well, there's nothing wrong with it per se, but all you're doing is creating more work for yourself. Obviously if you make the fret slots too deep you'll cut straight through the fretboard.

In reality you'll probably lose a bit of depth on the cut fret slots after you've radiused the board and sanded it to a final finish, but all you do is then just quickly swipe the fret saw over each of the fret slots again with the depth stop set to the same position, just to make sure that all your slots still have a minimum depth to accept your fret wire.

[PRSpoggers]

1 hour ago, curtisa said:

Slightly deeper than the depth of the tangs on your fret wire. Anything less and the frets won't go in properly. Anything more...well, there's nothing wrong with it per se, but all you're doing is creating more work for yourself. Obviously if you make the fret slots too deep you'll cut straight through the fretboard.

In reality you'll probably lose a bit of depth on the cut fret slots after you've radiused the board and sanded it to a final finish, but all you do is then just quickly swipe the fret saw over each of the fret slots again with the depth stop set to the same position, just to make sure that all your slots still have a minimum depth to accept your fret wire.

What would be a measurement for that? I got medium stew mac fret wire as well if that will help with measurements for you

[curtisa]

I dunno. A couple of mm maybe? You've got fret wire in front of you - stick a ruler up against it and measure it. You're after measurement 'D':

[ADFinlayson]

Depends how thick the board is currently vs when youv'e got it at final dimensions, the impact the radius has and the size of your frets. You will very likely have to come back and make the slots slightly deeper at the edges after radius anyway. I would suggest you get the board to final thickenss (5-6mm is a good depth), then slot the board about 0.5mm deeper than the height of your fret tangs.

It's a bit scary first time round, but you will soon come to realise that it's easy just time consuming to hand cut slots. That's why I now do it freehand after the board is at final shape - I don't have to resaw slots after radius and there is a lot less sawing to do when the board is already tapered to final dimensions.