I posted about binding the Finger Board (FB from now on) so you know about that.
Then I had to install the frets. Fretting a bound FB is not easy. The frets if viewed from the end, look like the letter T. The part that sticks into the FB is called the tang. To fret a bound FB you have to clip off part of the tang so it does not go into the binding. That sounds easy and you can buy a special tool for like $60 that does this easily. I am building on a budget, so I opted to use wire cutters and a dremel to get the job done. It took about 3 nights of working to get it done and it was far from easy but I think the results are worth it.
The next thing on the agenda was to install the side dots on the edge of the FB. These dots allow the player to see the positions without having to crane his or her neck over to look at the front of the FB. Since I dislike craning just to see dots, I went about installing the side markers. Dots at positions 1,3,5,7 and 9 went in without incident. Then came the markers for fret 12. This position gets two dots. I screwed up and put the dots at the 11th fret.
Oops..this is bad. Now what? On an unbound ebony FB you can hide such a mistake fairly well with some ebony saw dust and glue. Not so on my pretty maple binding. With some coaching from Ken at KMG, here is how it went down:I had to connect the two dots (lol) and make a rectangular slit. Then I had to make a little tiny plug to put in the aforementioned slit. Both of these tasks caused great anxiety since I could easily mess up and make things worse. But I did not. I actually made the slit with nice clean edges. Then I made the tiniest plug. Also with clean edges. I also decided to chamfer all of the edges of the plug so it would be like a compression fit piece when installed and glued. I did not take pictures of this process. I am the best documentarian EVER!! Here you can see my plug in place.
Its the dirty little line next to the two white dots there. What? The white dots are hard to see on the maple? Yes. I know. I changed them to rosewood plugs. I had a little extra rosewood that came for the heel cap. That gets installed later, but I measured the heel cap and I was able to take off about a 1/8th inch square log from that. I then chucked it into my drill and held it to some sandpaper while I spun the bejeezus out of it. Once the bejeezus was completely removed, it became a round log and lost its squareness. Now that it was no longer square it would be accepted by the cool kids in school. Except I cut it up and did this with it:
Then I sanded the plugs flush and it looked like this:
Pretty cool. Now my side dots are easier to see. More importantly, they are in the right places!! Which works well since I kind of need to see them. I am an awful guitarist. But not too bad of a novice guitar builder. In fact, I took a poll today and it turns out I am the best luthier in my house. Who woulda thunk it? Actually, I would have and did...even before my poll. Oh...and before I forget, here is my finished repair to my little dot snafu:
Not bad for a total hack, eh? Click the picture to see a larger version. Yes. I am totally patting myself on the back. It looks even better now that I sanded it with a finer grit. I just don't have pics of that yet. I am a bad documentarian, remember?
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