Woodworking Wednesdays | Fretboard

bertrayo(76)

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Hello there, my fellow artisans and handcrafts enthusiasts!

Welcome back to another entry on the building process of this Venezuelan Cuatro. Last time, we had just finished working on some other parts of the neck. Today, we are going to give them their final shape and also add the fretboard to jump back to the assembly process of the build.

Let's get ot it!

Head Shape

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After having put all the pieces on the head stock, we can finally get to shape it to our design. We start by doing some preliminary work on the surfaces of both sides. Now we start the whole process. The first step is to mark all the lines that will guide the shaping of the head stock. Then we proceed to make all the cuts to have all the shape near the lines.

The second step is to start getting ever more close to the lines. We can use the hand plane to work on the sides of the head stock as this will make it easier to get a straight line on these parts. Then we use a file to remove the material on the curves until we have the shape complete.

The third step is marking the holes for the tuners. We just need to consider the space needed for each one. Then we can just use the drill with a lot of care and open each one of the holes. And thus we have the neck ready to proceed to the next parts.

Fret Slots

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Now we can start working on the fretboard. We just need to use the card scraper first to start removing material from each face of the fretboard. We'll do this until we have remove any cut marks. To make the faces even, we just need to use sandpaper to get both a smooth surface and remove any uneven spots.

Then we can work of the edges. We need to get them squared off so we can make all the marks needed for the slots. When we are ready with that we can use the template to get all the marks in place. Then we use the carpenter' square to mark all the marks for the 17 frets and an extra one at the top for the space that will be occupied by the nut.

Now we use something to guide the fret saw and start opening each slot one by one. This process takes a lot of time since we need to replace the guide each time we are working on a slot. Once we are ready, we can move to the glue up step.

Prep and glue up

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We are ready to start completing the last tasks to get the fretboard glued to the neck. The first part is to remove material from the sides of the fretboard to make it narrower at the top and thicker at the bottom. We use some guide lines to make sure we do not go over the measure.

The second step is to make marks on the reverse of the fretboard. We also make the same marks of the upper face of the neck. These marks will give us a better grip for the glue.

Third, we proceed to clamp the fretboard to the neck as a dry-fit test. When this is done, we use the drill to make some small holes at frets 1 and 12. These holes will hold anchors to make sure the fretboard does not move when we apply pressure to the whole assembly.

When everything is ready, we apply the glue and clamp the fretboard to the neck. Then it is all about letting this rest for a long amount of time. That is all for today. Follow the process on the next step to find out more about the progress. Thanks a lot for reading. See you next time!