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Kept putting it off but finally glued a couple of fretboards with epoxy. (Smith's from LMI) Everything they say is true and it was not as messy as I thought. Flat as a pancake. Guess I'll keep doing it.
TJK

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Your shop looks waay too neat, are you ok Terence?

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This is a little more typical. We just got another 8" of snow. The place really needs to have all the windows opened and get blown out. I'm really really sick of this winter.

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Great, now "I'm a believer" is going to be an earworm for the rest of the day. Thanks a lot, Terry!

Nice shop! I'm a believer in epoxy'ed fingerboards too, BTW.

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Yup, me too!

Hey Terence, care to give us a full shop tour at some point? I'd love to see the rest of your digs, machine room (assuming you have one), other angles of your setup room, spray room?

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Great timing Terry!
I am putting down two cocobolo fretboards this week! I have used West System in the past
but I will be using the (LMI) Smith's stuff this time around.

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

This is what it looks like today Rod. I moved out of the basement 5 years ago much to my wife's delight.



Here's the tool room. So far I'm fine with the little table saw. The homemade sanding table could be designed better. I just got a Woodpecker lift for my Bench dog router table. Works great.







Here's the utility room and the spray area. I just sprayed a dollhouse and made a huge mess. I'm embarrassed to have the finish guys see it. I have an explosion proof fan I picked up but the rest of the room is not up to code yet for explosive stuff.

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Excellent choice. Welcome to the club. Awesome shop too.

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Mike

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh." The Stranger

I really liked the Smith's Lance. You are supposed to let it sit 20" before use and it's not very runny and was not that hard to clean up. Hope it holds. I'm still a beginner with epoxy.
Here are a couple more pics. A different angle on the assembly room and tool room and my compressor in the garage part. It weighs probably 300 lbs and qualified for free shipping on Amazon!! The dust collector is there too. I'd like to upgrade that someday but this ##!!$ recession has cut into sales big time.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Is there something special about teh epoxy used for luthier work over regular epoxy available most anywhere? For example, would there be any difference using Smith's epoxy versus using epoxy from Golfsmith like they use to glue the head to golf shafts? (assuming you use epoxy with teh same cure time)

If epoxy for luthier work is thinner than normal epoxy, could one glue the fret board to the neck using Z-Poxy?

Thanks for your thoughts.

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Terry, I was wondering if you would mind posting your process for measuring/mixing this epoxy. Also, what is the open time?

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

Lance,
The Smith's All Wood Epoxy from LMI comes with detailed instructions. Basically it's a 1/1 mix by volume or 1/1.2 A to B by weight. They recommend transferring the mix to a separate container and re-mixing and allow to sit 10-20" before use. Around an hour if using on end grain. Pot life is 2 hrs @70 degrees. Full cure 24 hrs.
I was using golf club shafting epoxy before for smaller jobs but never glued fretboards with it. I used the Smith's on my first two fretboards at about 20" post mix and cleaned the squeeze out at about an hour.
I found the Smiths easy to use and liked it better than the golf club stuff. Looks like it should be good stuff if what's said about it is true.
Terry

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