Another guitar finished!

[therechris]

I've looked at StewMac and others, can't find one that is made of purpleheart wood which is what I need to finish the guitar.

[harold_weber]

Not sure why you are "nervous" about the fretboard. Did you want someone to lay it out, cut it or both?

Here is a sample angled fretboard layout I did for a local builder earlier this year.

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[sagreen83]

Theresa, I dont have any PurpleHeart blanks at the moment, and do all of my fretboards in big batches. I have 30 or 40 that I have out of a variety of woods mostly ebony, rosewood, wenge etc. One off fretboards dont scale very well using my system. Takes too long


I dont actually do the fretboards on the shopbot. I have a super fine sawblade and a template that I use in my tablesaw to make them. I have a specialized sander that is used to radius the fretboards to any angle that I need. I actually find that I can do fretboards the old fashion way a lot quicker


I plan to do another over the christmas break (well at least get one started). My next one will be a carved topped, set neck, Tele with a Gibson Tune-O-Matic bridge. I haven't seen many of these before. The funnest part of making guitars for me is trying something that I haven't done before. This new guitar will be a whole new level of complexity. Just purchased Aspire, so I am hoping that I can do all of the 3d work for a carved top in Aspire.

One that that I can tell you is that if you are not using specialized vacuum hold down jigs with a small "Gast" style pump, you are missing out! I have a TON of jigs that I have made to hold down all of the guitar pieces that I do, and if I didnt have one of these pumps and all of the jigs, there would be no way to do this style of neck. I carve the back of the neck with the shopbot, and you will notice that the headstock tilts back. This makes it pretty difficult to use clamps to hold this thing down. Food for thought.

Thanks for all the comments,
Scott...

[harold_weber]

If you want more information on what I called "angled fretboard" you can Google "fanned fretboard".

[brian]

Great looking guitar,must be hard to wait a month to play them.
Thought I'd slip in a guitar I made awhile back.Made from a 4" slab of western maple and a walnut strip,with a sitka spruce top.I made it headless and used Stienburg tuners.

Brian
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[brock_poling]

Nice Guitar Scott.

Theresa, you can cut the fret slots yourself with a template and a simple jig you can make for a table saw (essentially a cross cut sled). Check out LMI, they sell these.

Or if you are really stuck email me and I will cut one for you. I am a guitar builder.

[btkfrisco]

Do you mind sharing how you hold down your wood and if you did the design on your neck?? I am working on my first ShopBot neck now and would appreciate any information you are willing to share.

[khalid]

Wow...awesome work... it will be surprise for us if u attached WIP pictures of that beautiful guitar...
Thanks