Rick500

David Gilmour

I'm assuming they're for fretboards, considering the radii.

Why wouldn't you trust a fretboard to them, if you had a good method to keep everything in the right position? Not saying there's not a reason, I'm just curious.

Not sure what kind of foam you guys are talking about, but you might try a piece of pipe cleaner inside each spring. Bend a bit of it out one end to get it to stay put.

I've shaved down the neck heel a good amount. Now I'm trying to decide how to handle the sharp edges of the recesses for the two neck screw ferrules nearest the edge of the body (they're deeper since the heel is contoured over them). I'm leaning toward just rounding them off a bit with sandpaper, but I thought I'd ask if anyone had any other thoughts.

Don't be so hard on yourself. At least you didn't hurt yourself or anything. (I got a pretty decent bandsaw bite a few months ago when, powered off, I accidentally popped the tensioned blade off the upper wheel.) Power tool lessons learned without band-aids or worse, are easy lessons. Let's hope we all learn only the easy way.

If the blade moves down through the table, the motor is moving the right way.

How long is the blade on that saw? It shouldn't be much problem to turn it inside out unless it's really short.

I'm still not sure which way you're saying the blade is moving. If you were to imagine a fixed spot on the blade level with the top of the table, where would that spot be a fraction of a second after you turned the saw on? Above the table or below the table? If below, then the motor's running the right way.

Maybe something that just gives it a little red-brown, not too much.

My Les Paul is approximately 17 1/4" body length, 9 1/4" widest point of upper bout, 7 3/8" thinnest point of waist, 13" widest point of lower bout, 1 13/16" thick at the edges, guessing 2 1/8", maybe 2 1/4" thick in the middle.

Glad you decided against the pickguard.

If you don't mind my asking, where did you find that cherry?

I just fretted my first neck today with the Stew-Mac arbor and caul, using my 10" Ryobi benchtop drill press.

That's the exact drill press I broke. It was suprisingly a really good drill press, for the money.

Yeah, it's been great so far, for drilling and drum sanding purposes.

Fretted! My first fret job, at the same time easier and altogether more work, than I expected.

I think it looks great without a pickguard, but if you were going to put one on, maybe something like this pic (maybe round the points I drew a little):

I just fretted my first neck today with the Stew-Mac arbor and caul, using my 10" Ryobi benchtop drill press.

Even with a block of wood reinforcing the drill press table, it felt pretty flimsy, and I was worried that I was putting stresses on the drill press that it wasn't built for. (I probably should have used something more substantial to reinforce the table; the force of the press was pushing the table out of square even with the wood beneath it.)

The fret job came out very nicely, but I won't be using that little drill press for the job again.

If I had a more substantial drill press, I probably wouldn't think twice about using it. For now though, I'll probably get an inexpensive arbor press.

The neck on my Strat project is about 1/16" thicker (from the fretboard surface to the back of the neck) than it should be, which puts the fretboard surface that much too high off the body.

I figure I'll either route the neck pocket a sixteenth deeper, or plane down the neck heel the same amount.

The neck hasn't been shaped yet. The bridge is a Gotoh hardtail.

Is one solution inherently better than the other?

It seems to me the best and most accurate way to solve this would be to just route the pocket a little deeper since there's already a flat surface there to guide the router. (I know the best method would have been to plane down the neck before I affixed the radiused fretboard. )

Just thought I'd run it by you guys in case there's something I didn't consider.

Thanks, guys. I decided for now to let that particular piece go. I'll get some thinner, drier stuff.

Yeah, a few of my Carvins have blend pots. I like the arrangement quite a bit.

I crank the guitar volume all the way up most of the time, and control volume with the amp. Occasionally I use the guitar volume to control the amount of fuzz, if I'm playing just at the point between clean and starting to break up.

I'm thinking about buying a piece of about 4" x 4" x 20" cocobolo that's been air drying for at least three years. There is no opportunity to actually measure the moisture content.

If it's been air drying for three years and has been stable for that amount of time, is it likely dry enough to resaw and use? Or is there no way to tell without getting a moisture meter on it?

I got mine last week and used it to level the cocobolo board on my current build. Two quarter sheet strips of sandpaper at a time and a little spray adhesive... worked like a charm.

Measure from the edge of the nut the strings break over (fretboard side of the nut) to the 12th fret. Double that; that's the scale length.

I've found that although I'm allergic to the dust, just touching the wood itself causes me no ill effects.

There's always the possibility of putting a finish over it if it becomes a problem.

Hmm... the middle one looks quartersawn to me, and the one on the right (mostly) riftsawn, despite the captions.

There are probably several ways of doing it, but here's how I did it:

Radius fretboard with router jig

Cut fret slots

Attach to tapered (but not carved) neck

Rough cut fretboard taper on bandsaw

Sand fretboard taper close to finished dimensions

Next time I'd probably radius the fretboard after it's already attached. Easier to clamp for gluing while it's still flat.