Acoustic Guitar Construction

It is said that one of the advantages to slotting with a CNC is that the slot depth can be controlled to follow the contour -- there is no extra depth cut at the center -- so the FB will be a bit stronger and less likely to bow. I personally don't see this as being very important seeing that 100's of million guitars have been constructed with slots cut straight with a fret or circular saw.

We can make this type of FB on our CNC machines, contour depth and all -- but the process is much more time consuming then our standard table saw fretting fixture method. We use a carbide .023" mill bit ($9.00 ea.) to the above --- I'd say there is a 99% likelyhood that the bit will snap off while trying to hand feed twenty slots. The CNC machine can delicately feed taking mulitple depth passes -- otherwise it would break bits too.

I would suggest, to get the look of a self-bound FB that it would be best to bind it with matching material --Ebony, Rosewood etc.

I think I'd rather just bind using the same material; it's not that difficult a job.

deadedith wrote:I think I'd rather just bind using the same material; it's not that difficult a job.

Ah, come on Dave - Where's your sense of adventure?

I left it, along with my mojo, in the 90's....

Ahh...my mojo. I miss it sometimes.

The idea of using the same material to bind a fretboard as the fretboard so as to hide the fret tangs appeals to me. I have no access to a CNC router, so I'd be applying binding to the fretboard sides. So...what would be a workable thickness/width of the binding material? I doubt it would be the as-purchased thickness of the binding strip, but I have nothing but a guess as to how thick to make the bindings before I started getting tangled in the process.

Thanks very much.

Peter - did you ever get an answer to this? I'm sorry that I just noticed your post, don't know how I missed it.