Needing Advice-My first Acoustic Neck

[Kim Hillard]

Please post your process and progress as you go.

John, I've installed the position markers this morning and took them down to flush. Can you tell me, now that the fretboard is slotted, if I should take it down to proper width before creating the radius or should I do it now? And is it proper to install frets into a finger board only after it is glued onto the neck or does it matter. I've read where the finger board might obtain a upward bow when the frets are installed. I'll do a little internet digging to try to find the proper sequence too.

[John J]

Hi Kim. This is how I've done it: slot the board first. Then taper and and install binding(if doing so). Then I radius the board. Then I install markers. When using thin pieces of abalone or pearl I set them so they are just about flush with the center of the board. I've worried that if I radius after I may be too thin at the edges. I also install the frets before the board is glued to the neck. I'm now using a small fret press and it seems to work well. I do leave off two frets so I can use some brads as registration pins and to keep it from sliding during glue up.

[John Parchem]

Looking good. I do things in a different order than John, but think the way he described is fine.

I thickness, radius, slot, taper, bind, inlay and then after the guitar is finished I fret on the guitar. The reason for my order: I uses a router bit to radius the fretboard blank so I need to use the same edge of the fretboard as a guide for the router table as I will use when I slot; I radius before I slot to take out the possible of tearout with the router on each slot. (this order would be an issue if I slotted on a table saw); I save the fretting to the very end to have the ability to assure that the fretboard is flat along the string paths before fretting. I can generally eliminate the need to do any fret level as part of my setup.

[Kim Hillard]

John P. Thanks for your input. May I ask the members something that has me a little confused? Lets just say that my fingerboard is thicknessed to 1/4 inch and is say 2.5 inches wide full length. At this point I can cut the slots for the frets, as I have a squared up reference edge. Then I can apply a uniform radius to this and lets just say it brings down the long side edges 3/32" which leaves a 5/32" side height. So now I have a nice 16" Radius on this Fret board blank. Ok so far. Now here is where I'm looking for feedback. At this point I would draft the taper to the blank using the center line of course. I now execute the taper with a bandsaw or whatever saw is at hand, then plane or sand to my drafted lines and here it is...the edge of the fretboard that once was 5/32" height full length, is now 5/32" at the wide 2.5" end but is taller at the nut end say 3/8".

So how is this dealt with? Or is it just me? Is this where Multi-Radiused necks come in?

Any way I haven't got my head around this yet.

I've gotten anxious in the last couple days and forged ahead and created a 1st freted finger board in the life history of Kim.

[ken cierp]

On the center-line Martin Finger boards are .250" at the nut end and .260" at the extension end, the radius is a uniform 16" -- here's the explanation from one of my Martin factory Engineering contacts:


To
'Ken Cierpilowski'
Message body
Hi Ken,
We put a taper of roughly .010 from the nut end to the very end of the fingerboard. The reasoning is that the radius on the fingerboard thins out the edge of it as the overall width changes from (narrow at the nut end) to (wide at the very end). By increasing the thickness throughout the length, it helps keep: side dots centered to the bottom edge of the fingerboard, the end fingerboard from cupping due to fretting, proper bridge height/fingerboard drop.
I hope this answers your question.
Thanks,
Mark

[John Parchem]

Ken's Martin reply is interesting. I have not done anything like that and keep the tapered edge caused by the radius and the taper of the fret board.
Compound radius is a different thing. If you think about path of the inside strings. Those paths are not perpendicular to the radius, so along the string path the fretboard is dropping away more than just the angle of the string for the action. The compound radius helps that, allowing slightly lower action. I recently realized that I get a slightly compounded radius with my procedure. After I have a constant radius on the fretboard. I switch to a level sanding block and sand along the string paths, trying to create a level fretboard path under each string.

[Kim Hillard]

Thank you John. I understand everything except "Those paths are not perpendicular to the radius,". Do you mean parallel?