Fretboard radiusing jig

Roland

This is tempting:

https://youtu.be/aLI5TU_BGXI

TTony

That’s pretty much the approach that Mark Bailey uses in his workshop.

Ive also got a router but that does the job - if you’ve got a table router.

PeteC

Quite a bit of initial work to build but a great fast process once its made i guess
   I like the adjustable radius facility using the threaded rods attached to the main Axle/shaft - nice design.  

axisus

Radiusing a fretboard is something of a PITA so that would be a great thing to have, but I don't make enough guitars to warrant the effort.

Roland

My interest is whether it could be more precise and/or less risky than a router jig

jasonbone75

Router cutter RPM will always make it the riskier choice against slower moving alternatives.

Done well the sanding jigs produce results as good as anything out there.

Corvus

A mate has a large linisher + swinging rig which I've had a go on; it takes about 10-15 mins to dial in a new radius setting, once done it's one to two minutes per board.
A key thing is an accurate flat bed and coarse paper that doesn't stop for anything, too fine a paper and the boards come out less true.

With the G&W radius jig I do boards in 4-5 mins, using a bowl cutter there's almost no sanding clean-up either. But different radius setups aren't cheap, and the linisher setup can do any compound.

The long hand-sanding beam only took 15 mins for rosewood & maple, 20 mins for ebony so it's not a massive time saver over the G&W setup. But the G&W is as accurate as you could want, no falloffs or whatever else, plus you can shim one end to get the edges the same height after radiussing.

TTony

Roland said:

My interest is whether it could be more precise and/or less risky than a router jig

As I said, Mark Bailey has been using something similar* for years, and his fretboards come out perfectly.

* He uses a vacuum system to hold the fretboard, and does the fretboard before attaching it to the neck.  Also, he uses a much larger sanding bed so the whole board is done in each pass, no need to move the board longitudinally.

And definitely less risky, on many levels.

GSPBASSES

That’s how I used to do.

https://youtu.be/6QFx4yfu0Zg

Roland

@GSPBASSES I’ve always envied your long sander. I haven’t got the space for something that big. That’s why the shorter sander and sliding jig caught my eye. 

BillDL

That's almost how I radiused the first fretboard I made from scratch using a slab of good quality ebony about 40 years ago.  The difference was that i didn't have a sanding belt.  I made a jig using an old metal curtain pole.  Same principle, except it was all manual - rocking it back and forwards like a swing in a play park while pushing down evenly on the "trapeze" across several pieces of sandpaper stuck to a piece of glass on a bench.  I was obviously sanding across the grain and I lowered it in very small increments with thin spacers, so it took a long time and a fair amount of longitudinal sanding afterwards to remove the cross grain sanding marks, but it worked.  I wouldn't have tried it on rosewood though, because of potential chip-out at the edges.  I don't think you could buy ready made radiusing blocks back then, or if you could they were prohibitively expensive and I was (still am) a hobbyist.

Corvus

The router carriage setups are actually not huge in that you have basically just a flat board to stow somewhere, hang on a wall or whatever and the radiussing carriage isn't big.

DartmoorHedgehog

What stops that whole rig just being thrown to the side by the belt sander?  In the film in the original post it doesn't look like he's holding it that tightly, and it looks to be just free to slide sideways on the hooks.

PeteC

After my first few hand sanded boards I bought the G&W jig with a 10" and a 12" radius guide.   It works really well with my small makita router. The trick is getting a good solid baseboard and accurate width centre rail for it to ride against to get the best results. 

GSPBASSES

I don't use the long bed sander anymore, I switch to the G & W system with Makita routers. It's not as quick as the long bed sander, also you have to do more sanding after the routing, it is very accurate and consistent. You don't have to use an expensive router like the Makita, you can pick up a very similar router on Amazon for under £50.

On the original G & W system you could only radius fingerboards up to 70 mm wide, that's not wide enough for 5 and 6 string basses, I'm just purchase the new version where it can radius up to 80 mm.

The great thing about the G & W system it doesn't take up any space as mentioned earlier in the post, when you finish your board you can just stand the jig up against the wall out the way. My long bed sander will be getting the chop very shortly as I need the space.

Roland

Thanks Graham. I’ll stick with the router, and make a better jig.

elstoof

Are you slotting board before carving? Any tear out on the edges or am I overly worrying

Roland

Me? I do this by hand, so slot before radiusing cause it’s easier to measure fret positions. I’ve not experienced any tear-out but I don’t like rosewood boards. So that takes away one source of chipping. For tools I’ve been using a 2cm diameter bottom cutting router bit, taking narrow passes so that very little wood is removed in each pass. On a 10” board radiusing takes out the edge of the slot, where any chip-out would likely be. I have to recut the slot ends, but since I don’t do this commercially time is not at a premium.

elstoof

It was a general query prompted by the photo above mainly, looks like the slots are already cut. It’s something I’ve been thinking about though as I slowly gear up towards my first scratch build. Many thanks for your advice!

Sporky

I radius then slot, but I don't think one way is universally better than the other. I slot with teeny-tiny router bits which aren't long enough to slot first. 

TTony

Are you still maker-Ing @Sporky ?