Official Luthiers Forum!

anyone tried to make their own miter box out of whatever (wood, plastic, metal) and use it with the Stewmac fret saw+depth stop?

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I made one to use with a normal back saw. Pretty simple device, just a slot in the sides of the box at the right depth so the back saw stops at the right height. But with the stew-mac saw you don't really need it as you can adjust the depth. I use that now on the rare occasion that I slot my own fretboard or for getting the right depth on a freshly radiused board.

Well, I am thinking of buying the stewmac fret saw because I can find Doukzi saws in Taiwan (which is cheaper than the stewmac saw) but the problem is the kerf is too thin, about .3mm or .010" wide, which is fine for anything else but the frets won't go into a slot that small. I don't feel like spending over 120 dollars just for fret slots (because I am already spending a lot of money on other things, like sharpening, etc.) and I thought I can always either use a block of wood to insure a 90 degree cut, or make my own miter box out of wood or whatever.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I made a fancy miter box for a stew-mac fret saw and abandoned the idea after several attempts. I replaced this with a stew-mac table saw blade. The miter saw got so bound up in ebony that I would get very inaccurate results. Very frustrating.

The table saw works great.

I don't have a table saw, and don't have space for one either. I find ebony easy to cut, the most important thing I find is having a stable workspace and go slow if possible.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

This method has worked for me.
After scoring fret positions, clamp a square to the (clamped) f'bd to place the sawkerf centered on the score. Sandwich the blade between the square and a block the correct height to act as a "stop" against the backsaw's spine and clamp.
The kerf is now vertical, perpendicular to the edge and the right depth. Move & repeat. Low-tech, but it works.

_________________
Dave
Milton, ON

A mitre box would take some time, largely because you would have to make it very accurately. That's harder than you think if you only have hand tools. If you were doing a handful of fretboards it would be better to just use an accurate rule, magnifying glass. sliding bevel and a scalpel.
The other cheap alternative is to make a dedicated fret rule out of a stable hardwood. Mark with a knife point and cut very shallow slots with the finest saw you have. It's then simply a matter of clamping the hardwood rule to your board blank and engaging a knife in the slots. Position a square (or sliding bevel) against the knife. remove the knife and saw your slot using the square as a guide. The thickness of the knife usually accounts for half width of the kerf although you may have to tilt the square up a little to avoid the set of the saw teeth.
Something I have been meaning to try is the use of a digital caliper - probably a 12" unit to minimise accumulated errors. You can set these using the inside jaws, one jaw goes against a false nut and the square is then positioned against the other jaw. From the the theoretical fret position you would have to deduct half the saw kerf and the full width of the set square blade. Not a fast process if you are just slotting one board but it certainly becomes a lot more productive if you are doing 4 or 5 at the same time.

Here's my set-up. Its a red oak jig similar in shape to stew-macs. It's got walnut end pieces that hold adjustable uhmw blocks.
There is no indexing pin, the board just gets advanced and clamped. I layout and slot and use stew-macs fret scale rule or any other accurate rule, a General Magnetic Scale magnifier and Optivisor when my 58 year old eyes need it. The fret saw is stew-macs. and I check my depth with stew-macs fret slot depth gauge. It's accurate, slow, but I'm in no hurry.
René

Just buy the fret saw. You don't need power tools to make a miter box. It's such a simple contraption. Got a square and some hand saws?
As soon as my batteries recharge I'll post the pic of the miter box in my shop.

I don't understand why stewmac and others charge so much for such a simple contraption... I mean they can make one out of molded plastic for budget minded users (could contract the manufacturing to China to cut costs) I just bought the fret saw and some 3M polishing cloth (I am going to use it for sharpening) as well as the stewmac nut rule. That nut rule has better be worth the 20 dollars for it though!

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

'thickness of the knife usually accounts for half width of the kerf'

Michael, does that mean that for a .023 kerf you use a saw of roughly .011?

I think what he means is that the blade itself is .011 and the teeth is set to cut at .023

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

hey tai. i used to use daves method, then built a little miter box out of 1/2" birch ply, with a piece of aluminum bar stock as a stop.
cheap and easy. shim up the fretboard until the depth is right.
a good way i found to lay out the frets with daves method is to lay out the frets with a heavy sewing pin, like a centerpunch,
check them till they are dead on, then put the pin in the divit, and put the square against the pin.
eliminates seeing the mark.
of course now i built lap steel only, so just run a kerf on da tablesaw, and inlay a fretmarker of some material.
so nice and easy!
alan

I hear there was supposed to be a pin that came with the template we got. Not sure about that but we just made one out of a ground down allen wrench.

But really, it doesn't get much simpler than this

oh yeah, we double side tape the fingerboard to the template

My apologies. I thought the reference to a miter box was the one where it is slotted for each individual fret. If you are using the templates and the type of box that Alexander has shown it really is very straightforward.