Fret boards

marshall.....I stand corrected....you seem to have a good grasp of what you are doing, go get yourself a fret scale and make a bunch of guitars....hell....I'll buy one if they sound good!!!!
 
TravisinFlorida said:
you have to glue the fretboard to the neck before installing the frets. :D
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Not at all true. In fact, I usually fret the fingerboard before I glue it to the neck. Now, it is true that you don't want to leave it freted for long before you glue the fingerboard on, but there are certainly good arguments for either way. You can be a little more careful about straightening the fingerboard if you glue it on first (not much), but you can also do a better job of seating the frets if you fret it before you glue it. Freting it first makes a lot of sense if you are using an arbor press (as I do), but even if you are hammering them in you can put the fingerboard on a surface which does a better job of absorbing the force of the hammer, leading to less spring back from your blows. We use a piece of I-beam that a machinist ground flat for us years ago. The frets really do seat themselves MUCH better when you use something like our I-beam.

However, that being said, no, you can not buy prefretted fingerboards. Just build your gutiar, and take it to a profesional to get it fretted.

As for the truss rod, Gibson truss rods are easy to make, but the truss rod slot is a bit of a pain in the ass to cut. I hear a lot of good things about the Stew-Mac Hot Rod, but I've never tried it (I'm already well set up to do Gibson-style truss rods, and they work as well as anything while using significantly fewer moving parts, which is always a plus in my mind).


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"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Sirnothingness said:
Your spelling has improved. Now we just need to work on your grammar. Get that taken care of, then we can talk about building guitars.
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marshall.amps said:
You are picky!
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Expecting a person to use proper grammar is not pickiness. What we want is for you to communicate in a clear, legible, and easily understandable fashion.


Basically, we just want to be able to understand what the fuck you are talking about.



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"Cowards can never be moral."
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TravisinFlorida said:
I believe (not sure) you can get gold frets by electroplating the fret wire. The fretboard needs a specific radius or compound radius. Some guys hammer in frets, some press them in, and some do both. I've read that hammering frets in is tough for a newb. You cut the fret slots with a saw. I have no clue how long a truss rod should be. Look it up. Same with the fretboard glue. I know that there are a handful of different glues that builders use. I found a site once that went into detail about how a guy built a strat with all hand tools and homemade jigs. I imagine that he had some previous wood working skills though. I'll see if I can dig up that site for you. Did you check out projectguitar.com?
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Gold frets (or gold toned frets, actually) can be had from Jescar, but don't even bother calling them, because they won't sell to you unless you are a registered business, and you need to order at least 5 pounds, which is WAY more than one guitar. Oh, and it has a hardness similar to stainless steel, so expect all future fret work to be noticable more expensive (though you will need less of it).

Buy a sloted fingerboard from Stew-Mac or LMI. If you aren't set up to do it, it is way to easy to fuck up, and even very small mistakes are huge.

A truss long should be the right length. Sorry, but that's all the more answer anyone can give. They need to be the right length for the design of the guitar. Rule of thumb; on an electric it should go from about the middle of the neck joint to the nut.

The ONLY glue which should EVER be used for fingerboards is tightbond or something similar (LMI's Luthier's Glue is another good possibility). NEVER, EVER use epoxy. When the guitars fingerboard needs work, you're completly fucked.


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"Cowards can never be moral."
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marshall.amps said:
How do you make a truss rod?
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Just go to stewmac and buy one fer fuckssakes

Your ignorance is really beginning to get annoying.

Try google. Try Borders books. Buy Cupiano's book. This isn't a guitar-building site but there are some out there.

But you're gonna have to find them yourself. Lord knows you need to learn how to learn and do some independent research.

Now go play elsewhere for a while and come back when you have something besides stupid questions to offer.
 
c7sus said:
Just go to stewmac and buy one fer fuckssakes

Your ignorance is really beginning to get annoying.

Try google. Try Borders books. Buy Cupiano's book. This isn't a guitar-building site but there are some out there.

But you're gonna have to find them yourself. Lord knows you need to learn how to learn and do some independent research.

Now go play elsewhere for a while and come back when you have something besides stupid questions to offer.
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If im so anouying why dont you to to another thread dummi
 
The basic design of a classic Gibson-style truss rod is a steel rod cut to length, threads cut on both ends, some sort of anchor on one end, and a nut on the other. For this you will need some way to cut small diameter metal, a 10-32 die, and a 10-32 tap if you are making the anchor from scratch. On the anchor side, you will need to use some method of securing the anchor. This could be hammering the threads and end, red tite-loking, or a few other ways. Just make sure that you have your lengths correct first, because if you did it right, the only way to get it back off is to cut it off.
 
marshall.amps said:
So should my truss rod be as long as the neck? Well except for the head stock were the tuners are of coarse.
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I'm not going to tell you. Go buy a book. It will help far more than anything anyone could tell you on the internet. Just go to Stew-Mac and buy one of the Build an Electric Guitar books. They are more than worth the money, and will answer all of your questions.


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"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
marshall.amps said:
I need a fret board for a guitar im building i have the body and the neck cut out, and the neck isnt shaped yet. Does any body know were i can buy a fret board that has the frets on it already? I dont want to put the frets in my self it sounds too complicated and i dont want to mess with them.

I would post pics but i cant get them to go on there to big.Also if you have any truss rod suggestions.
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Compared to shaping the neck fretting should be a piece of cake.

You can either you a plastic hammer or buy a fret press from Stewmac.
 
The last neck I made got a truss rod that anchored about 1/2\" after the neck joint. There really is no exact length or ratio for set-neck, as long as it will have a strong anchor and enough room and resistance to control the neck\'s bow. Like others have suggested, read a book on this. Cutting a body and a neck blank out is one thing, but routing, measuring, cutting precisely, getting it all together so it doesn\'t fall apart, and many other things take a little more knowledge. Melvin Hiscock makes a great book on this that helped me successfully complete my first build without any previous woodworking knowledge, and I recommend you pick it up and read it thoroughly.
 
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