fretboard thickness?

[peter havriluk]

Moving right along with my kit project (aka teaching machine, make my mistakes here and learn from them), I'm fixing to sand the already-sawn-for-frets fretboard to a suitable radius. The width has already been trimmed into it. The kit manufacturer says 20" radius, I'm not sure but I'd go to 16", consistent with the first guitar I built and the one I'm learning to play on.

Now, once I get the fretboard sanded to my satisfaction, I'm concerned that I need to worry about its thickness lest I get my backside in a crack come neck installation/bridge installation time. Am I right to be concerned? Is there a thickness that is commonly factored into the process? The neck angle will control the imaginary line sighting down the fretboard to the bridge, whose height is critical to guitar setup, but does the fretboard thickness inject a variable I need to control, too? I can guess that if the fretboard is not the same thickness for its length the divergence will be nasty to cope with come setup time - - - it looks like the fretboard top ought to be parallel with the neck top.

I've seen fretboards, both sawn for frets and bare wood, offered at various thicknesses. Are these sanded to the thickness I was referring to up above before proceeding with sawing the fret slots and trimming the width?

Thanks very much.

[ken cierp]

Standard finger-boards are about .25" +/- on the center-line no need to get too concerned if its a bit thick or thin. To get to 16" you will only be removing material on the outsides so the center will remain as it is. Likely you'll have to re-saw the fret slots. Of course the properly contoured finger-board will be slightly thinner on the outer edges at the 22nd fret then at the nut.

[peter havriluk]

Thanks very much for the discussion. Much obliged.