manual fret slotting?

gratay · Post by **gratay** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 12:51 pm

I'm just wondering what people's thoughts are on the 2 manual fret slotting systems from stewmac and LMII..
Lmi have dropped their price and its now about $175US which includes the template for slot positions..
The stewmac one is about $90US + $40US for the template...

anyone had any experience with these units ? they both look reasonable..is the quality of saw better in one ?

Other than a table saw method does anyone have any other methods they'd like to share.

cheers Grant.

jackspira · Post by **jackspira** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 1:14 pm

Hi Grant, I've got the stew mac one which you are welcome to come over and try out. I've found it very good, except for the saw which is very average. I've since got the LMI saw to use with it and that seems a lot better.
Jack

Chopper · Post by **Chopper** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 1:19 pm

Hi Grant,
My experience is with the Stew-Mac product which I find to be perfectly useable. The saw is especially good quality and the whole thing is a good system. I would say 15 minutes tops for a dread fingerboard. I have also made my own templates out of acrylic or perspex for scales that are not available in their templates . Their web site has a scale calculator on it to help with this. I got the whole uke family on one template, soprano and tenor on one side, baritone on the other. Hope this is helpful
Cheers John

kiwigeo · Post by **kiwigeo** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 1:26 pm

Im hand cutting my fret slots using the LMI jig and Stewmac saws..works fine and the exercise is good for you.

One thing I do is run a bit of wax along the side of the saw to make it run a bit more freely.

Chopper · Post by **Chopper** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 1:27 pm

Hi Jack,
I should have mentioned that my saw did not work too well until I removed all the lacquer coating on it with thinners, after that it performed nicely.
kind regards John

Paul B · Post by **Paul B** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 1:36 pm

I bought a cheap little piece of crap GMC "table saw" from bunnies for $70. Yeah 70 bucks, so you can imagine how good it is as a table saw. I was kinda embarassed to ask for one, and had to put on a hat and some sunnies when I carried it out to the parking lot. They didn't have any plain brown wrappers for it. It looks like the GMC tile cutting saw.

Cobbled together with a fret slotting blade from Shane at High Mountain tonewoods and some blade stabilisers from Lee Valley, it works pretty good as a dedicated fret slotting rig. And considering the total cost was around $120, I'm happy with it.

I don't have any pics yet, and I don't see myself having time to take any in the short term (Craig knows just how busy I am at the moment). I will take some at some point tho.

Having slotted a few boards with this setup I can see a few areas that can be improved, so I'm going to rebuild it and post pix here once I'm done. It works well enough as it is - but I was never one to leave well enough alone

Way better than doing it by hand, and comparable in price to the manual rigs. But a bit more time spent on the initial set up.

Bob Connor · Post by **Bob Connor** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 2:16 pm

I've got the Stewmac setup.

Very happy with it.

Dennis Leahy · Post by **Dennis Leahy** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 2:34 pm

I have had both the StewMac fretting saw and the LMI fretting saw. The LMI seems better made to me.

I'm about to make a new manual fret slotting jig, similar to my old one:

It's made with a pair of those furniture bolt/screws that are threaded for wood at one end and machine threads on the other.

The bolts support a piece of angled aluminum, and the top of the aluminum is radiused. There is a washer and nut below the aluminum as well as above it (on each side), so you can raise or lower the jig. The back of the backsaw rides the aluminum, to keep the depth of cut consistent, as well as radiused. So, the center of the radiused fingerboard has the same depth of fret kerf as the edges.

This one was fully manual - frets marked by hand and aligned by hand. The new one will use the LMI templates, and will have aluminum on both sides of the blade to stabilize the blade even more.

Oh, by the way, there are a couple of test cuts at the end of the pictured fretboard - not some kooky new scale I invented.

The circular saw blade on a tablesaw with a sled is a slick system, but the fingerboard does get kerfed more deeply than necessary. I'd go with the circular saw if I was making a lot of instruments, but for a slow poke like me, this is fast enough.

Dennis

Craig · Post by **Craig** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 3:03 pm

I've had the L.M.I. jig for a few years now . As Dennis said , with a manual system ,there is one advantage in that the kerf can be cut to a matching radius very simply ,leaving more wood under the frets .

One thing to be careful of though is the width of the saw kerf. The L.M.I one looks to be an English "PAX" saw, and is advertised as having a kerf of .023"

After careful measurements , I have found this not to be the case. More like .021 " I discovered this after getting a fair amount of back bow when fretted. My fretwire had a tang width of .023 " . A lot of wire has a sliightly smaller tang ,so your fretting should be O.K. Just check the tang width first .

I informed L.M.I. of my measurements and typical of their great service ,they sent another saw ,,,,,,,,,same width of kerf ,so I'm guessing them all to be the same.

Removing the laquer and lubricating the saw are good tips from John and Martin.

Lillian · Post by **Lillian** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 4:17 am

Dennis, how did you radius the angled aluminum?

gratay · Post by **gratay** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 1:21 pm

thanks for all the great info guys...
I will look into it.
Thanks for the offer Jack...I'll give you a buzz .

Dennis , that jig looks like it would work just as fine and looks easy enough to whip up...although I'm pretty jigged out at the moment...I feel I spend more time making jigs than working on the actual instrument..
cheers everyone.

Dennis Leahy · Post by **Dennis Leahy** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 2:23 pm

Lillian wrote:Dennis, how did you radius the angled aluminum?

Hi Lillian,

I printed out the correct radius arc from a cheap, er, inexpensive CAD program (DesignCAD), on heavy paper, cut it out with scissors, and transferred the line by scribing along the card stock with a fine point Sharpie marker. Then, I used a mill file on the aluminum, and it was easy to file that small arc.

The correct radius for the aluminum was calculated to get the fret saw teeth to cut a 16" radius. So, the aluminum was about 17.75" radius, if I remember correctly. Should be 17.625" for the new LMI saw.

This time, I found some T-shaped extruded aluminum, rather than the L-shape. That will allow me to keep plenty of aluminum in contact with the blade (on both sides) which should make it as accurate as anything out there. I need to grab a new saw from LMI as well - the newer ones cut on the pull stroke.

gratay wrote:Dennis , that jig looks like it would work just as fine and looks easy enough to whip up...

Grant, you're right, you could whip one up in a few minutes like my current one. I'm mainly starting over to make a new one wide enough to fit the LMI templates in, and thought of a couple of probably non-essential things I could do to improve it for longevity and accuracy.

Dennis

joel · Post by **joel** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 6:54 pm

Thanks for sharing Dennis. I think I'll be making a jig very similar to yours relatively soon.

Dominic · Post by **Dominic** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 7:09 pm

I use the LMI jig. This thing will be around for hundreds of years, it is almost over built.

I cut a flat slot first on a flat fingerboard in the jig. Then I radius the FB and cut it to shape then go over the slots again out of the jig with a depth guide on the saw so I get a curved fret slot that follows the radius. Bit of extra work but it works for me and seems to give good results so far.
Dom

Dave Anderson · Post by **Dave Anderson** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 12:31 am

I've been using the Stew-Mac jig and also lubricate the saw with wax. I'm soon switching
to a table saw blade and slot-cutting jig.It sounds easier on the old shoulder!

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