Official Luthiers Forum!

What kind/brand tape are you using for the fret slotting template? All I could find at our Ace was heavy duty mounting tape and it's way too strong.

You're not running it along the whole length of the board are you? That would be very excessive. I use a piece about 3/4" wide at each end and one in the middle. Plenty strong enough. And a quick shot of naptha or acetone releases it easy.

No, I just tried a little piece on some scrap and was surprised how strong the pieces stuck and then how hard it was to clean up. Don't have naptha, I'll get some for clean up. Thanks!

C-7 Double-Sided Tapes and Film Adhesives.

A range of double-sided tapes and film adhesives are useful for instrument building, and are generally employed to provide temporary bonding of components to templates or fixtures, as well as more permanent (but still removable) bonding for pickguards outside the body and for microphones, pickups, or controls inside the finished body. These tapes and films include the following:

Double-Sided Carpet Tape (e.g., Shurtech Duck Brand Fiberglass Carpet Double-Sided Tape, which is available in the United States at some home centers, Walmart, and online). The degree of hold is controlled by the number and size of the pieces used, with two square inches (four x 1/4" x 2") pieces being more than sufficient to secure a template to fretboard, and a bit of VM&P naptha applied with a squeeze bottle or disposable pipette breaks the bond for those with low grip strength or on delicate components or materials such as solid wood rosette rings.

Double sided carpet tape is used for most temporary holding jobs where it is appropriate, including routing ply-backed wood rosette rings, holding bridge and nut blanks to carrier boards for dimensioning with thickness sander, radiusing bridge plates prior to installation, holding cauls in place on clamps or inside the body, and pattern routing peg heads.

Double-Sided Foam Core Tapes (e.g., 3M 414P Extreme Mounting Tape, available at home centers and online in the United States) is used where the greater flexibility and vibration absorption characteristics of the foam core is useful, such as mounting pickup system components such as internally mounted preamplifiers, tone and volume controls, or wiring and cabling standoffs. Foam core tapes should not be used for mounting components to templates or fixtures unless the bonding surfaces are sealed and smooth, and the pieces of tape used are large enough to keep distortion of the foam core under side loading (loading in shear plane of adhesive) to a minimum. Like other film adhesives (foam mounting tapes use two layers of film adhesive for adhesion), foam tapes will not reach full holding power immediately - most will require 24 hours of undisturbed drying time to develop full bond strength.

Masking tape + CA here too. Spray activator on one side