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Hi guys,

Hope the title is OK hesh! I have some big bits of kiln dried bog Oak which have been pretty stable over a few years. They have plenty of drying cracks but they're big boards so I've cut decent blanks. Previously I've made a basic jig for my wooden radius block and sanded. For a long time. I'd like to try hand planing, at least till I'm close.

I'm not going to start this build until late autumn but I want to do the fretboard and three neck laminations as soon as possible to allow the wood to move if it wants to.

The bog Oak has pretty big pores so I was thinking about pore filling it. I was thinking CA to help soak into any cracks but to be honest it's nasty stuff and it's got expensive.

I have a home made jig for my Japanese saw for slotting which I like but I have no depth control so do it by eye.

Suggestions appreciated for how to proceed.

Thanks all.

Oh, I'm a little past half a dozen builds of that helps form any answers.

Typically fret boards are not pore filled and I would think that it would actually be a problem with it being pulled out of the pores. We see lots of guitars with divots where the player frets the most so fret bards do wear in time and so will pore filler.

When I play I'm bending strings and the string is being pushed and ground into the board. I can see this pulling pore filler out and being problematic for the player.

Thanks hesh. Maybe I'll leave off the filler. Any thoughts on order of operations. I can't imagine trying to plane a slotted fretboard going well but obviously people do it, am I being weak?

You are very welcome Mike I'll leave your next question for the folks currently building. I haven't built a guitar since 2009

For the depth on slots with a hand saw:

I made a mitre box with the sides cut it to match my hand saw. The saw stops cutting when it hits the beam. If your saw doesn't have a beam at the top, you can put shims on either side of the box by the slot, at the depth you want it to be.

I don't use templates, just a pencil, and a digital caliper. I cross check to the last fret I cut, and to others before to keep the lengths from growing. Keep your wits about you. You have to subtract the width of the saw cut! The first cut will only subtract 1/2 the width of the saw width. A shallow cut with the saw; and check. It is easier than getting them wrong.

I've cut the radius on mine after slotting. How else would you do it, if you had a bound fretboard? I test the slot on either side of the fretboard. When it is right I start sawing in the middle. I do plane whatever taper there would be on the fretboard to start. If it is a straight radius up the whole thing, it will have a taper. If it isn't you have to figure it out. There are programs out there for that, I just take the radius I want, square it, and subtract the square of half the width of the board (with the finished taper that isn't on it yet) and get the square root of that. Subtract that number from the radius, and you have how much the center will be above the flat edge. Do that for each end, and you have the taper. It isn't nearly as much as a taper on a violin or cello fingerboard.

Is that a scraper spoke shave? Looks like it might work great.

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Why be normal?

I've planed after slotting - I mark out with board square, then cut the slots part way, then taper it, then radius, then deepen the slots as needed. You want the plane extra sharp, and to have marked the best planing direction to avoid tearout at the slots.

To plane, I sand a few strokes using the radius block and coarse paper. This shows me the high spots to plane. Repeat until done. Though I plane a rough radius by eye first, this always ends up shallower than the block.

Machine tool users will have jigs and do this differently of course.