Fretboard Ideas for a new guitar body

Bill Duncan · From: Lenoir, North Carolina, USA

I have finished the structural part of my MSA D10 new body project, but I have run into a snag of sorts. For the life of me I have not been able to come up with a fretboard design that works for me.

I have stayed true to the original design of the guitar body and neck shape. The neck design of the circa '77 MSA D10 has the one piece neck, (no aluminum piece), running completely under the changer with the changer sitting on extensions of the necks.

I could buy new fretboards, (very thin plastic), from Tom Bradshaw or Bobbe Seymour but I want to go a different route and make them myself. It's not the making of the fretboards that has me stumped, it's making them and staying as true as possible to the original neck shape, size, and space below the strings.

I thought about either fretting the neck with guitar frets or inlaying pearl or binding strips right on the wood without a seperate fretboad piece but as the frets progress up the neck to the higher registers there would be frets extending pretty far past the first and tenth string, and I'm not too happy with the look of that.

I am cetain that someone here has an idea that would look great and I would not have to alter the shape of the neck. Probably real simple too!

Any ideas are certainly apprecciated.
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Per Berner · From: Skovde, Sweden

I would use real frets on ebony for a really classy look. All the stuff you need is available from Stewmac or Luthiers Mercantile. Narrow mandolin fretwire on 1/8" thick ebony would probably work fine. You may need two blanks, though, because of the necessary width.

Martin Weenick · From: Lecanto, FL, USA

I make mine out of Cocobolo and Abalone with Mother of pearl. Martin.

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Per Berner · From: Skovde, Sweden

That's almost TOO pretty, Martin! Smile

You need one heck of a cabinet to match that!

Bill Duncan · From: Lenoir, North Carolina, USA

Martin,

Beautiful fretboards. I too am considering cocbolo for the fretboard, also looking at purpleheart amd ebony.

However it isn't the materials that have me hung up. It's the spacing beneath the strings. The MSA neck is all one piece, no aluminum section for the pickup and changer. This means I will have to cut the thickness of the neck down to allow for the fretboard thickness. That is if I just glue the fretboard on top of the neck. If the total thickness of the fretboard is .1875" to .250" then that brings it closer to the strings than I want.
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Martin Weenick · From: Lecanto, FL, USA

Bill, I plane my Cocobolo down to i/8 inch thickness. Do not worry about space under the strings, the fret board will have no effect on anything. Martin.
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Bill Duncan · From: Lenoir, North Carolina, USA

Thanks Martin, that's what I will do. I am probably concerned about nothing.
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Bent Romnes · From: London,Ontario, Canada

Bill,
I made my fretboards out of walnut. With a very accurate table saw, I sliced 1/16" thick slabs off a 3/4" board, making several passes ,cutting progressively deeper and turning the board, cutting from both sides. I left a very thin sliver in the middle so that the blade wouldn't grab the cutoff. This slice was then broke off clean and planed down by hand.

I made the fret lines by routing with my dremel tool about a 64th deep and filling it in with white paint. Then I had my daughter in law paint on the fret logos, in this case Norwegian "rose painting" motifs. Then I lacquered the fret board with the same lacquer as the rest of the guitar. When dry, I knocked off the gloss with 0000 steel wool.

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Stu Schulman · From: Ulster Park New Yawk (deceased)

Bent,I like those a lot! Winking

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Bill Duncan · From: Lenoir, North Carolina, USA

Bent,
A beautiful fretboard, ingeneously done.
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Bent Romnes · From: London,Ontario, Canada

Bill, Thanks for the kind words.
Stu, Thanks as well. Whatever works with the tools you got. I love Walnut and it is fairly easy to work with.
Lovely grain and natural color.
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chris ivey · From: california (deceased)

yeah nice...these make me wonder why no builder just makes a real nice wood neck with inlaid fretmarkers, etc...
and not have to bother with a separate fretboard. i could see this opening up a beautiful artistic era.

Bent Romnes · From: London,Ontario, Canada

Chris I have thought of that. Actually there are a few builders who do it. I know of one - Ed Fulawka. Actually there is no fancy art work on his fret boards but he silk screens the frets and markers right on the neck. Makes a nice smooth and finished look. Nothing wrong with taking that one step further and get a template made up with ones favorite design, and going to town. I think the one issue that small builders have with it is the fairly high cost of having the template made up. And then actually learning to do a nice silk screen job.
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Bill Duncan · From: Lenoir, North Carolina, USA

Bent,

I like walnut as well, beautiful wood. The dust bothers me a lot.

I built my guitar body from quarter sawn, very tight grain white oak. I just worked the wood down for my fretboards, I chose purpleheart. I have not decided if I will do pearl inlay or not. I'm gonna do the frets, then see if it needs inlay. I'm using white Bolteron binding for the frets. The board will be bound in abalone pearl. I'm using that for the body front inlay strips as well. I will finish the body with nitrocelulose lacquer, it polishes great.

Thanks for the fretboaed tip, I took them down to .125" as you said.
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Bent Romnes · From: London,Ontario, Canada

Bill, White oak huh? That should fix the cabinet drop in THAT guitar! Show us pics as you go along. Better still, join the builders' forum and post your pics there as well. Click on the link in my signature
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Bobby D. Jones · From: West Virginia, USA

Beautiful fretboards everyone I love, Walnut, Eboney
mother of pearl. Now for a cheap, quick and servicable fretboard. I made a set this way for a steel in 1969 and they still look good. Take a thin piece of Lexan or plexi-glass cut it till it fits the neck exactly the way you want it to. Bevel and polish the edges. Keep bottom edge sharp. TURN IT OVER and lay it on top of the original fretboard you want on your steel. Tape them together to hold exact. Now with a good masking tape. Tape the edges of each fret exact leaving the fret exposed. Fill between each fret with tape neatly. Now for markers. A series of diamonds are the simplest to cut with a sharp Xacto knife.Long single. double or tripple small diamonds or whatever you want to cut out. Now mask the edges neatly and spray paint the frets color you like. once dry. Remove all the tape. Now neatly tape the edge again completely around. Now spray the spaces desired color. Once dry, remove tape. Let dry a couple day. To install, turn paint side down. Use double sided tape or drill and use small screws to attach. Now you have a surface that will keep the paint safe from scratches and liquids.

Bill Duncan · From: Lenoir, North Carolina, USA

Bent,

Yes, white oak. I ordered the wood from the Woodworkers Shop for a projrct last year to build the running gear for a horse drawn buggy. It works well, is very stable, and finishes beautifully. I wanted hickory for the buggy, but I could not get it quarter sawn at the time, so I got the white oak.

Just to share some trivial, useless information I learned while building the buggy; buggy builders in the northern US used oak. While builders in the South used hickory.

I have a good supply of figured maple, some really nice stuff I got from a textile apron manufacturer, and I was tempted to use that. But, there are a lot of pedal steels around built with maple, and I wanted something different. White oak colors well and is hard and strong.

However if I had been able to get the quarter sawn hickory, I guess my new MSA body would be hickory.
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Bent Romnes · From: London,Ontario, Canada

Bill that's interesting what you are doing because not many pedal steel bodies are built from white oak. We know it's a dense and heavy wood, I believe heavier than hard maple. It will be neat to see how it stacks up against maple weightwise, since we are all preoccupied with balancing strength and weight.

Another wood some brave soul could try is white Ash. It takes stain beautifully and finishes like red oak. People have been fooled by their similarity once finished.
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Ross Shafer · From: Petaluma, California

Lamar Colvin's fretboards are inlayed wood, he sets them into the neck as opposed to right on top. He uses MOP for the frets and dot markers....nice stuff!

Bill Duncan · From: Lenoir, North Carolina, USA

I'm doing pictures, I'll post some soon.
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