Doing fret board and head stock binding -questions

[Peter Wilcox]

Not sure where to post this, but this looks as good as any.I've just done my first neck binding, and don't know what the best order of steps might be. I did it as follows:

-Flatten and thickness fret board.
-Cut fret slots (easier for me when the board is still square)
-Shape/taper fret board to final dimensions (allowing for binding of course)
-Radius fret board
-Glue on bindings to sides of board and shape to radius

So now I have an essentially finished board, minus the frets, though it could be fretted before attaching it to the neck.

Now the neck - squared, flat, truss rod channel already cut

-Veneer glued on head stock - thickness dependent on desired binding height, as it seems the bottom of the binding needs to be level with the bottom of the nut and fret board
-Head stock shaped
-Binding channel routed - to be done before fret board attached so it isn't in the way of the router
-Binding installed, though could be done after fret board attached

-Glue fret board to neck - here is where my main question is.
It is radiused, so to clamp it to the neck, I could use a whole bunch of clamps on each side, or make a caul with a matching concave radius, or do what I ended up doing. I used two 1/2" by 3/4" flat cauls the length of the neck, and clamped one on each side of the fret board.
It worked out OK, but I would much rather clamp a flat fret board, but then would have to radius it afterwards, and my problem would be getting the depth of the slots right if I bind it before it's radiused (which decreases the depth of the slot at the edges). If a slot is too shallow at the edge I wouldn't know until I fretted it, and would then have to remove the fret and either cut off part of the tang or try to deepen the slot. I would also like to bind it before gluing it on the neck, as I would then have to route the binding channels, and any time I use a router there's a good possibility of an adverse outcome.

I'm probably over thinking this - I guess I just need to know the best way to clamp a radiused board (fretted or unfretted) to the neck.

Anyway, any suggestions on how to do things differently/better/easier would be appreciated, since I'm going to do another one soon. Sorry this is so lengthy.

[Bob Gramann]

I glue the fretboard to the neck after it is slotted and radiused. I use the radius sanding block as a caul. It's easy that way and everything fits. I can't speak to the binding because I've never bound a fretboard (too much trouble to refret). I use the side of my preshaped fretboard as a guide for a pattern bit in the router (in a router table) to bring the sides of the neck even with the fretboard before I carve the neck (I do cut close to the fretboard with a bandsaw before I make a pass with the pattern bit). It would seem that you could glue the binding after you glue the fretboard and before you cut the sides of the neck down.

The pattern bit for this operation has a 3/4" diameter and a 1/2" shaft. I am very careful with the position of my fingers. This might be the scariest operation I do in guitar making. That bit sticking up out of the table seems to taunt me.

[Peter Wilcox]

Thanks Bob. Unfortunately my radius blocks are home made and only about 8" long.
If I attached the unbound but tapered fretboard to the untapered neck, I would need to find a good way to clamp the bindings. With the fret board off, I can just use two straight cauls against each binding against the board, though I suppose i could make that work with it on the neck.

[Bob Gramann]

The one I use is homemade and about 18” long. Make another. Or, use two blocks that you already have.

To make the clamping work on the neck, make a second tapered board that matches the fingerboard. Two straight boards on either side with the fingerboard on the neck on the bottom, a space, and then the second tapered board on the top, can be clamped in a few places between the top and bottom and ought to hold the bindings in place.

[Marshall Dixon]

...suggestions on how to do things differently/better/easier would be appreciated, since I'm going to do another one soon...

Hey Pete, Here are some pictures of what I use. It is not as rigid as I would like and will probably put some re-inforcment in one of these days.

I do my boards pretty much as the steps you listed except I radius and slot the board before tapering. I put the frets in first before gluing to the neck, also. The one thing about the bound boards with the overhanging fret ends is that should (when?) the fretboard shrink the little tangless ends can be caught and pulled up. Then they need to be glued down. Had this happen to a guitar I made in 2003 that was kept in a dry climate for 17 years. I use the Stew-Mac fret nipper.

[Mike Spector]

I fret my boards before I glue it onto the neck too. I don't use any caul at all. I use index pins and a bicycle tire tube cut into about a 1/2 " strip that's real long. You wrap that tight and it's clamped. Also I always check my fret board along the edges especially after I radius it. I use a piece of fret wire with no barbs, bent up and stuck into a little wood handle. The radius might make the edge of the board have too shallow a slot and that's not good if your using binding along the edges.

[Clay Schaeffer]

If you have an oscillating tool you could glue a bound, tapered, but still unradiused fretboard to the neck blank, and if after radiusing find the fret slots are too shallow on the ends you could plunge cut them deeper to suit the fret tangs. I have "stoned" a couple of oscillating tool saw blades to the proper kerf for my fretwire - it doesn't take much- mount on on the tool and run it flat on some sandpaper. You could make a simple depth gauge to check the fret slot depths before doing any fretting.
Alternatively if you want to glue a radiused fretboard to the neck blank you could make a clamping caul using a scrap of plywood faced with bondo conforming to the radius and providing a flat surface to clamp against. To make clamping cauls like this I put plastic wrap over the part and cover it with bondo and then place the plywood on top. After the bondo sets up it will be firmly adhered to the plywood and can be easily removed from the part. I mostly do this for oddly shaped bridge blanks where I want good clamping pressure over the entire surface.
Some people prefer to attach the neck/fingerboard to the body, and give the fretboard a final shaping before fretting. Both of these options would allow you to do that.

[Bryan Bear]

I radius and fret my boards before gluing to the square neck blank. I freehand a compound radius onto my boards by planning them (after they are slotted and tapered) focusing on getting the radius I want at the nut end and following the taper of the board. The radius at the bridge end comes out to whatever radius the taper and nut radius dictate. Because of this, my boards are not always the same so I don't have a caul to use for clamping. I suppose I could make them with thermoplastic or other methods but I have found that I don't really need one. I clamp the fretted board to the neck blank by clamping the whole thing face down to my bench so that the frets are on the bench top and the neck blank is on the top of that. This means it is all clamped flat and I let it stay there for a few days for the water to equalize. At first I worried that I would not get even enough clamping force on the edges of the board since all the force is being applied to the center of the frets and propagating out from there. In practice, I haven't found this to be an issue. The fretboard wood is hard and stiff enough that the edges are clamped well. After glue up, I carve the neck down to the fretboard binding removing the glue squeezeout in the process and never have any gaps between the board and the neck.

I just recently did my first two bound pegheads. I did things a little differently. I made the peghead veneer, inlayed and bound it off the guitar then applied it afterwards. This allowed me to glue it on with space for the nut and ensured that the bottom of the fretboard lined up with the bottom of the peghead binding (only interrupted by the nut itself). When shaping the peghead, I used the bound veneer as my guide to flush it all by hand. There are lots of ways to do this and I'm not sure I picked the best way but it worked out okay for my process.

[Peter Wilcox]

Thanks everybody - very helpful, with lots of options to think about before I do the next one.

[Randy Roberts]

Peter,
This might be too much bother, especially for a one-off bound fretboard, but if you plan on binding them down the road also, may be worth the trouble of making the jigs.
Using this method definitely has made fretting a bound fretboard much simpler and easier for me, leaves no tang exposed to see along the fretboard edge (one of the reasons for binding the fretboard in the first place), and sets back the end of the fret to allow for fretboard shrinkage without the fret protruding to get caught or needing to be re-dressed later.
For a gluing caul, I do the same as Marshall’s pictures, only with a layer of innertube rubber between the caul and the fretboard


https://www.mimf.com/library/Randy_Robe ... -2012.html

[Peter Wilcox]

That's a nice system Randy, and one I'd be likely to try if I was planning on many more, but I'm just doing this as an interesting learning experience at this point. I'm getting old and probably don't have many more instruments in me, but I've got enough wood to last me the rest of my life.

[Brian Evans]

So many ways, and no one does it my way... although it comes virtually step for step from the Benedetto book. I slot the flat and square fretboard. I taper it to size accounting for binding width. I add the "purlfing" binding to the tapered, slotted fretboard, and slot the binding. I glue the flat, slotted, half-bound fretboard to the unfinished neck (archtop neck with an extension over the body, this might not work on a flat top neck) using all of my clamps and 1/16" wire to locate it. If I am doing inlay or dots, I do that before I glue the fretboard on the neck. I add the outer layer of binding that doesn't get slotted at this point, the idea being to get it completely flush with the neck wood on it's bottom edge. I use thin CA glue wicked in, and press in it place while the glue sets up (if I think of it, I use accelerant). Next I taper the neck to match the bound fretboard, and carry on initial carving. Finally I radius the fretboard, install the frets, finish the carve and dress the frets. The headstock I bind exactly per the Benedetto example, before I glue on the fretboard. Rout the ledge on a router table, clean up with chisel and files, do the inner binding, then do the outer binding as two steps.