Steve Brown and I have been PM'ing each other because he is at the point where he needs to plane his classical fretboard. After a discussion on how to hand plane it I told him I would send him some pics and an explanation of how to do it on a jointer. This is a method I use but here is the disclaimer. You need to remove the fence and guard of your planer. Extreme caution is necessary!! Also, things happen much quicker with power tools so you can screw up quicker if not careful. Keep your hands away from the blades! I use my left hand on top of the guitar and my right hand is holding one of those plastic "paddles" on the back of the neck as I run it through the jointer.
With that said, here are the pics.
These two pics are of a "shim" placed at the bridge location on the guitar. You will notice that the bass side is about 1/2mm. to 1mm. lower than the treble side. This is because I put a taper on the bass side of the fretboard. It will be lower than the treble side. The height of the shim is about 5mm at the first string location and about 4 1/2mm on the 6th string side.
Place the guitar on the jointer. Notice that the shim and bridge location are on the outfeed side of the table and the fretboard sits on the infeed side of the table. The shim being tapered will plane this taper into the fretboard and also make your fretboard the correct height. You may need to adjust the height of the shim depending on your specs for your guitar. In the picture the fretboard is not glued to the neck. This is because I didn't have one ready for this step yet. YOU ALWAYS WANT THE FRETBOARD ATTACHED TO THE NECK BEFORE DOING THIS STEP! To me it is self explanatory but you never know who might try it without the fretboard glued on. Slowly move the guitar across the knives. As the fretboard gets planed it will rest on the outfeed table and provide support for the part of the fretboard near the peghead. Make several passes removing a little material with each pass. Wear earplugs as well cause with the guitar body resonating this really makes some noise.
I do not teach this method in my guitar building classes. The last thing I need is 25 guys with little to no woodworking experience heading to a jointer with no guards on it! I also do not show this method in my classical guitar buidling DVD. With that said, it is a very effective way of planing a fretboard and takes less than a minute, a real plus!
BE SAFE!
