Official Luthiers Forum!

I am finally about to the stage of gluing my fret board to the neck of No. 1. (Yeah, it's taken me a while.) I have my fret slots cut, the board tapered to almost final width, but still flat, not radiused yet. I believe at this point I should:

1. Glue board to neck.
2. Shape neck, at least roughly
3. Radius board, install marker dots
4. Install frets
5. Finish carve neck
6. Pull out remaining hair.

Sound about right? One thing I am curious about is what is the best glue to glue the fret board to the neck. What I have available to me is Titebond, HHG, and Elmer's White glue. I am leaning toward Titebond, because that is what I have the most experience with. I have some HHG and a small double boiler, but I have had very poor results using it, pretty much still at the bottom of the learning curve I'm afraid. The plain Elmer's white glue, I know it comes apart easily if necessary, but I wonder about it's strength and durability for this task.

So what do most of you use for this?

Thanks,

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Phil

http://www.oleninstruments.com

"Those who tilt at windmills are only considered insane by those who can't see the dragon."

I would radius, install position markers and profile before I glued fgbd to the neck, and I would use fish glue.

Thanks Jack, a few questions.

1. If you radius before gluing the board to the neck, does this complicate getting even clamping pressure? I was thinking some nice flat thick cauls might make it a bit easier.
2. If you do the radius and marker dots before the gluing, do you go ahead and install frets at this stage?
3. I've never used fish glue, but have heard good things about it. Where can I get some? Any place local?

Thanks!

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Phil

http://www.oleninstruments.com

"Those who tilt at windmills are only considered insane by those who can't see the dragon."

I use Smith's All Wood Epoxy for fret boards. Good stuff.

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Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from poor judgement.

I've been using stewmac's band clamp for gluing the last few years http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Speci ... Clamp.html
before that I used the same radius block used to sand the radius in the fgbd ... also a stewmac item http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Speci ... locks.html

I have installed the frets before fgbd installation, but I'm finding it is better to install them later in the process ...

As to getting the fish glue locally, I'd share mine or you could order from Lee Valley http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.a ... 65&p=20019

Fish. I used it once and it went very smoothly on the first shot.

Normally I use hide, but it's really tricky on a surface area so large. It gels really fast, and then the board slides all over the place when you put clamps on it. Have to use extra water in the glue, heat the parts, and clamp with the speed of a crocodile.

I keep it simple and old-skool.

Hide glue, and glue it on flat. Radius later. Warm the neck and fingerboard before gluing.

Leaving it clamped for a day or two to allow moisture from the HHG to dissipate.

Pros?
-HHG does not cold creep. Especially important to us who build with non-adjustable truss rods.
-You can clamp it to a flat surface, ensuring a flat neck.
-it's quick, and easy.

Cons?
-Some say they have trouble with the moisture introduced by water based glues, especially HHG.
When clamped to something truly flat, if left for a day or two, they always come out dead straight.


IMO, of course.

BTW, I use a small brad in the 2nd and 10th fret slot to index the board on the neck when gluing. It does get a bit slippery.
I can't imagine gluing a fingerboard on without some sort of index.

Heating the two pieces well give you AMPLE open time. No sweat.

As you've gathered, there are lots of different opinions. They're all right. If you are familiar with Titebond, I'd suggest you use that. It works fine, removes easily, and doesn't creep unless overheated. Make some time in your schedule to do more experimenting with hide glue and fish glue, polyurethane, and epoxy. You may come to prefer each for certain applications. Cyanoacrylates, LMI "Luthiers White Glue", urea-formaldehyde ("plastic resin") and resorcinol have their points too. In the mean time, stick with Titebond for the jobs that make you nervous. You can build the whole guitar with it. You don't need one more variable on unfamiliar operations. Fish glue would be the easiest transition--it actually gives you a little more time than Titebond.

Your sequence sounds good, but you may need to move #6 depending on how things go with the other steps.

One tip: things get slippery when the glue goes on. Get things lined up carefully with a dry fit and clamps, then drill some holes through the fret slots for indexing pins, or use some other solid indexing system.

Todd mentioned a caul with a slight "V" cross-section. A flat caul can work with enough clamps, but the tendency is for the moisture in the glue line to curl the fingerboard up at the edges. If your glue has water, you want lots of pressure at the edges (a rigid caul on top, and bar clamps every 1 1/2"). I use a flat caul with strips of veneer at the edges.

Filippo is right about leaving the clamps on. Basically, the longer the better. In a pinch, with excellent fit and massive clamping pressure, 12 hrs will work. Curly maple neck? Some of the ebony that's sold now? Leave the clamps on, and go fishing. In Alaska.

Mikey beat me to the point about indexing.

On fingerboard removal: I've run across some older hide glue joints that were harder to separate than anything I've seen on modern guitars, whatever the glue.

As for indexing, once you carve the neck to match the fingerboard's profile you can use bungee cords or straps to index it...

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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

Gee. what great advice on this forum! I have added some steps:

0.1 Prepare clamping cauls
0.2 Bump neck with elbow, knock off table to land on concrete floor
0.3 Yell and say naughty words
0.4 Examine new lopsided shape of once perfect end of head stock
0.5 Pull out more hair
0.6 Put fret board glue-up on hold until end of head stock has been reshaped.



I'm sure this has never happened to anyone else, right?

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Phil

http://www.oleninstruments.com

"Those who tilt at windmills are only considered insane by those who can't see the dragon."

Ouch. Swearing doesn't help, but it usually distracts you long enough so that you don't throw something.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

As regards the sequence:
I'm wondering about the issue of ensuring the finger board is flat after it has been glued to the neck and attached to the body.
Those of you who radius the finger board before installing- do you have to re-flatten and radius a little after its been glued in place?

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We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at guitars.

I have found that I had to reflatten after attaching the neck to the body, especially if it's a dovetail neck. The fingerboard experiences various distortion during the process and anytime it is disturbed the distortion is enough to affect playability. So now I just decided that I will just rough it out first, install it, then flatten once everything is assembled.

I can see why some builders use extra thick fingerboard...

_________________
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 use HHG. Not that difficult if you have everything well prepared. I use glued tabs and the actual top Nut to help locate. I haven't had one slide around yet. The other thing that I do is to wet or damp the upper fretboard surface before applying glue to the underside.

I've tried a few different glues, my current favourites are HHG and fish glue. To reinforce what has been said, HHG is no stress if you heat the parts a bit prior to adding the glue. As I finish the fingerboard before shaping the neck, I superglue a few blocks of wood to the top surface of the neck to help locate it. I use plenty C-clamps and a rigid caul which applies pressure to the edges of the FB, and leave it clamped for a day. Seems to work fine.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Installing frets is the bigest cause of fingerboards not being flat, so to me the logical sequence is to complete the fingerboard and get that flat before glueing it to the neck. Fingerboards always backbow when frets are installed prior to being glued to the neck, placing the ends on 1/4" thick blocks and clamping in the middle forces a 1/4" forward bow in the fretboard(Mario's method). Leave it clamped overnight and it's back to being flat and ready to glue to the neck.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon