Official Luthiers Forum!

1- what do you guys do where the tape meets finish so that you don't have a sharp ridge of finish... for instance where you tape off the fingerboard ? do you simply carry on and then try to smooth it when you're all done with finishing?


2- when you tape a fingerboard do you tape off ONLY the front of the fingerboard or do you do the sides too?

B

Be aware that I only build nylon strings. I can't imagine why anyone would tape the edges of the fingerboard unless it was to prevent color coats from tinting it but color coats tend to be very thin and wouldn't leave much of a ridge before being coated with clear. I tape the surface of the fingerboard and before removing the tape file the beveled end of the frets and put an every-so-slight bevel on the edge of the fingerboard. Any finish that might have made it's way under the masking tape is easily scraped off with a knife.

I tape the top of the fingerboard so that the edge gets finished then just sand off the top edge at an angle to ease the transition from the edge to the top, if that makes sense.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Yup.
Makes sense.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Same here.

Dave

+1

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I use a small triangle file to remove the small amount of lacquer on the fretboard edge, after sanding the fret bevels with 400 grit.

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It will probably be alright.

Same as above. My ex-wife thought it was quite a coincidence that when I was doing this job downstairs, many of her sanding/polishing boards for her nails would just disappear.

Brent

You said 'ex-wife', right? Never can we be sure of what will irritate folks.

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Peter Havriluk

Same.


Although... the last two I actually "finished" the fretboards with no frets in them (left the sanding dust in the fret slots to keep the finish out.) Gonna try that on the next ones as well, except more layers of clear coat next time. Still going matte, but I want to protect my fretboard from staining as much as I can since we used expensive figured woods.