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The first fretboard I slotted was done by hand with a guide and hobby saw. The results were that some slots were too deep, some too shallow, and the guide wavered on a few - making those slots skewed from the rest. I immediatly decided to find a better method. This is what I came up with. This is a "shooting board". It's purpose is to make perfectly parrallel repeated cuts. A frett board can be quickly and precisely cut when the shooting board is used in conjuction with Stewart MacDonalds Frett Cutting Table Saw Blade (item # 1557), and Stewart MacDonalds Dual Scale Frett Templates (item #'s 4915 - 4920). Materials Needed: 4' X 4' sheet of 1/2" MDF 1/2 lb. of 3/4" screws wood glue 150 grit sandpaper 1/16" drill bit (a cheap one) 4' - 2"x4" Tools Needed: Table saw Hand held drill Sanding block or handplane or jointer The shooting board should be a minimum of 16" in length and 38" in width. It needs to be at least 16" in length to get as much travel out of the runners as possible. More travel = more precision. A good rule of thumb is to make the shooting board just as long as the table of the table saw you will be using it on. The shooting board needs to be at least twice as long as the fingerboard you will be freting. This is to accomodate the fingerboard as well on the first cut (when most of the fingerboard is to the left of the saw blade), as on the last (when most of the fingerboard is on the right of the saw blade). The fence height is negligable as long as it is at least 1" tall. The purpose of the fence blocks is two fold. They ensure that the fence is perpendicular to the shooting board, in addition they also ensure that the fence is straight. For the fence blocks to accomplish their functions they must all be exactly the same size. The truss is there to simply hold the shooting board together since the saw blade will cut the board completely in two. The retaining block is purely a safety device. This block retains the blade when it gets close to your hands. Lastly are the runners. The runners are what keep the shooting board's fence perpendicular to the saw blade. So now we got dimensions for the the pieces needed to build the shooting board. Time to assemble it. The First step is to attach the fence blocks to the board. Be sure to countersink all screws used on the bottom of the board, as we want this thing to slide nice and easy - not snag on every damn screwhead. If the fence blocks are identical you should be able to line up the blocks with the edge of the shooting board base and have a perfect anchor for the fence. Next attach the fence to the fence blocks. Then add both the truss and retaining block. Now for the most important part of this whole thing. The runners. The runners MUST BE PARRALLEL TO EACH OTHER AS WELL AS THE SAW BLADE!!! The runners should be 1/64" thinner than the miter guides in the table saw. To achieve that dimension, I cut the runner material to the exact size of the miter slot and hit it with a sanding block, hand plane, or jointer to shave that last bit off the runner to make if fit just right. The runners can be made of mdf or uhmw, but if mdf is used be sure to seal them with shellac or similar finish to help prevent swelling. I prefer to dado the runners into the base of the shooting board rather than just screwing them on. I have screwed runners onto other jigs just to have them shift a little and bind in the miter slots. I cut the dado into the bottom of the shooting board only after I have completed the runners. That way the fit is nice and tight. I then glue and screw the runners into the dados. Last thing to finish the shooting board is to set it in the miterslots of the table saw and run a standard 1/16" or 1/8" saw blade all the way through the board. There is no reason for the blade height to be any more than 3/4". Now the shooting board is complete, time to set it up for frett slotting. An index pin needs to be installed into the fence to make the dual scale fretting template work correctly. The indexing pin is nothing more than a 1/16" drill bit that has been clipped to be around 3/8" long. Be sure to drill the hole for the indexing pin before clipping the drill bit. The pin should be 1/4" to the right of the saw kerf and centered 5/16" above the base of the shooting board. The purpose of having the pin offset 1/4" from the blade is just so you can't screw up and forget to change your blade depth, thus hitting the pin with the saw blade. Granted that is a pretty remote mistake but moron moments happen! You will also want to make sure that the fingerboard blank is a few inches longer than necessary so you can trim it up after you have it slotted. From here its easy. Take a standard 1/4" thick fretboard blank that has not been tappered or radiused and attach the dual scale fretting template to it via double stick carpet tape. I push the fretboard up against the fence and then hold the template to the fence as I push it down onto the fretboard. You then hold the fretboard with template installed up to the indexing pin and the pin will lock into the slots in the template. Push the shooting board forward to make the cut, pull it back, move the template to the next slot, re-engage the index pin and do over and over again until all your fret slots are cut. These four fretboards took approx. 20 minutes to cut. That beats the heck out of spending an hour and a half on one that ended up skewed anyway! Good luck, and see ya in the sandbox. Nate Robinson

Welcome to the forum, and I hope you have an enjoyable and informational stay. Learn to use the search, as well as how to ask informed questions and you should be A OK ( just a generalized helpful hint to those new to the forum). I would double check to make sure the right sized collet was used with the bit. Other than that I would inspect the threading of the collet to make sure it isn't cross threaded or marred - which may explain why the collet isn't tightening up correctly. Welcome to the madness, and be sure to take pics along the way! Nate Robinson

You may be able to cover certain key words - and their definitions and explanations - in your FAQ, just like you have addressed scale lenght. However, I think that the main body of the FAQ would probably be better addressed by linking to already existing tutorials. You probably wouldn't want to paraphrase LGM's painting tuts or Ansil's electrical tuts, for fear of losing some of the original content. An explanation of terms would be fine for the FAQ itself, but I feel that putting links to tutorials that cover the processes would be more beneficial to newbies (since the main point of doing this is to help those who either don't know the forum layout or don't have the skills or guitar vocabulary to refine a search). Just my thoughts though, good luck getting it situated. Nate Robinson

Voted for it then, and would do it again in a heart beat. Beautiful job, southpa, hope to see more in the future. In the mean time thanks for the helpful advice and insights. Nate Robinson.

If it were me in your position, I would make sure I had the neck, bridge, and pickups in my possetion before starting any cutting. That way you can easily compare the part to the route its going into. I wouldn't stop planning for the routes, I would just wait to make them till the hardware was on hand for carefull scrutiny. I always route the neck pocket to the neck that will be used, being such a critical cut, I try not to generalize and just make the pocket to the dimension the neck is supposed to be. As far as the pickup routes go I finally broke down and just bought a set of pup templates from stewmac. For the bridge - I have never installed a TOM on any of my guitars, so I don't have anything for ya there. Good luck man, sorry I couldn't provide the measurements themselves. See ya in the sandbox, Nate Robinson

Ingenuity strikes again, going to have to remember that.

Well, if all we are talking about is math skills, then maybe we should be concentrating on guitars. KICK ASS GUITARS = APPLIED MATH!!!!! Nate Robinson

Elegance doesn't appeal to someone on a fixed income when purchasing a new home. I would be interested in the price per square foot of a home in a "metric" country, however there are many factors that effect that price. Social, economical, and political views/beliefs affect the pocketbook and thus the "elegance". Since politics is off limits here, though, I will agree to disagree and keep an eye on this thread as I am in the market for a tele template and don't have a tele to pull a template from as Mr. Kirn seems to. Nate Robinson

It's interesting to me that this thread has encroched on two topics; (neither the original thread intent) scale, and metric vs. imperical measurment. Metric is far more precise on a smaller scale and Imperial is far more economical on a larger scale. Just the thoughts of a guitar builder/contractor. ONTOPIC: Pm bigD, I'm sure he'd set you up with a template. Or figure out your scale problems with cad - assuming the cad drawings are actual drawings of your vintage tele. Good luck! Nate Robinson EDIT: unclear punctuation.

If you have - or have access to handplanes - your in business as far as leveling a one piece body blank goes. If you have them or can borrow them, then make sure they are tuned and practice on scrap first. Otherwise a thickness sander or 20" planer are the other options I can think of, but they tend to be a bit on the pricey side. Hope this helps, good luck! Nate Robinson

No one is trying to discourage you, it's just that for most of us here this is playing monday morning quarterback. The reasons we started doing this aren't generally the reasons we continue to do it. Being able to produce a one off custom instrument, as well as enjoying doing it are probably the most common reasons for building around here. The downside is that most of us don't save much money building our own guitars (the amatuers anyway, there are a select few pros that really turn out some amazing stuff, though I have no idea what their profit margins are.) Nate Robinson

You've been getting some golden advice here. A good full scale plan will save you much more money than it will cost you - not to mention getting better odds of finishing a decent instrument. The odds of pulling an Oddboy out of your hat right out of the gates is pretty slim. I started building guitars because I couldn't afford the one I wanted. When #1 was done I had spent more on it than the one I wanted from the music store. But it was damn fun, so here I sit looking over PG for pointers on how to do it better! Welcome to the forum and good luck in your build. Nate Robinson

I think the key to carving the type of laminate you are considering is twofold. First, as has been mentioned, cutting tools are going to do a better job than abrasive tools due to the different "hardness'" of the woods. Second, what really makes the two tone sandwich work is the smooth line of not only the carve, but the carve at exactly the point that the woods are laminated. If the carve isn't smooth than the lines of the laminates look jumpy or not in harmony with each other. Never tried this though, so just an opinion - take it for what its worth. Good Luck. Nate Robinson

My opinion is that it may be moderately playable, but it will never be right. If it was me I'd start over with a new fingerboard. Your guitar, your call. Hope everything turns out for ya. Nate Robinson

Thanks fellas, that pretty much summed up what I was looking for. Southpa; I was looking to take the most stated comfort issues and make a concerted effort to apply that knowledge to my own strat knockoff design. I had forgotten about easing the fret board edges, thanks. Marksound; Bedroom rocker through and through, man! The only problem is that my wife has a tendency of misplacing my guitar while cleaning. The reason I asked here instead of running down to the music shop and treating myself to a goof off with every guitar in the place, is that there is a very limited selection at the local shop and I've just been too busy to leave town. What prompted me to investigate the matter, though, was that something on my harmony(strat knockoff) just feels strange as far as the body is concerned and I can't quite put my finger on it. I play sitting nearly all the time and the body seems to dig into my leg... I wasn't sure if the body was just too heavy or perhaps the roundover is just to slight. Dunno, like I said the availability of other guitars to use as reference is limited right now. Nate Robinson

Wow, there is more info here than I anticipated. I hadn't considered several points raised thus far. I agree with Idch, and DrummerDude in that I am constantly playing neck position, and next thing I know the whole thing gets tense and without "body" because I've tripped the Pup selector. Mattia: What is your perspective on "sharp edges digging into you". What tends to be a problem area for you? Do you do on the fly adjusting with your instrument or with pedals? Which do you find more efficient? DrummerDude: I'm married and #5 will just get me in trouble. Unless... I convince the wife that the guitar doubles as a vanity.....DAMN GOOD IDEA!!!! Nate Robinson

first damn double post. Sorry.

That is a very good point. Would you mind giving a brief description of how you begin your "offset center"?

I am exremely interested in opinions concerning what is considered neccesary for a solid body elecric guitar to be comfortably playable. I am not a performing guitarsist, and it occurs to me that the perspective of someone who has to strap up and plug in for someone other than themselves may be a good learning tool. As it stands now my designs are based around the strat being played while sitting on the couch. I'm not only interested in what a comfortable strat copy should be or include, but just what is comfortable period, especially in a possibly uncomfortable situation - IE performing for and hour. Thanks, I know this may be a dumb question for some of you, but indulge my curiousity if you will. Nate Robinson

Well, I have made three necks and fretted two. The first sucked so bad I plan on burning it - along with the body (way to heavy). That fret job was done with a brass/poly hammer and my inexperience became evident pretty quick. The second time I made a neck it went much smoother. The only difference between the two was that I got the stewmac blade, made a shooting board to run the fingerboard, and used a press to install the frets. Night and day difference as far as the fretting goes, but the neck itself was done in the same manner. A tuned spokeshave, scrapers and sand paper. Someone mentioned in another thread that the centerline defines the carve - that is the golden rule of carving the neck. If you don't break the centerline, you don't expose the truss rod channel. It really is that simple. There is a lot of voodoo involved with even the thought process of creating a neck. In my mind though, it really just comes down to geometry: 1. The strings have to have an equidistant accending spacing from the nut to the bridge (forming an elongated trapezoid). 2. The strings need to stay roughly the same distance from the fret board from the bridge to the nut. Several was of skinning a cat, same holds true for this. 3. The anlge of the headsock needs to be sufficient to hold the strings in the nut without allowing them to move at will (barring locking nut of course) 10 degrees is my preferance for 3x3 . 4 Possibly an angle on the heel of the neck (depending on if you need neck angle for your configuration AND if you subscribe to the idea of angling the neck vs. the pocket for the desired relief). 5. The neck must be wide enough at the nut to accomadate the string spacing you want. 6. The neck must be wide enough at the heel to accomodate the spacing of the bridge while still leaving the same distance from the string to the edge of the finger board to the the E,e strings To me those are the simplified requirments for making a neck, everything beyond that is personal preference - which is what making your own neck is about anyway. However, I am not a pro. I don't consider myself good enough to be telling anyone what to do. This is simply the thought process that I use when building my necks. BTW, if you fellas that have more experience would like to poke holes in this - feel free. I'm here to learn. Nate Robinson

Thanks for that one soapbar! Now my nose burns and there's beer all over the damn keyboard. LMFAO!!!!

Do you understand the principle of scale length? Seriously, no insult intended, do you understand exactly what scale length is. In addition do you have the bridge already? If not do you have the dimensions or a diagram of it. If you understand scale length and have the bridge or bridge diagram you should be able to apply that knowledge to a full scale side view drawing of the guitar and be done with it - problem solved. Nate Robinson

I think that the best possible advice I could give in this situation is: Draw a full size side view template of your project. This will answer the question you have now, and probably a few you may not have thought of yet. Good luck, hope everything turns out for ya. Nate Robinson

Amen to that, fryovanni!