3d contour will work just as well as 2d contour, surface project, pencil mill etc.... so the following is academic and food for thought and not to be taken as an absolute or the only way to do this task...
But think for a moment about what kind of cutting you are doing. In a typical 3 axis mill like a Haas or Fadal etc.. you fret board is laid out lengthwise along your x axis. All of your cutting motions are in Z/Y plane or G19. Choosing a toolpath like say, surface project or 3d contour forces the post to output splines where hundereds of lines of code are needed to generate a simple arc. Yes you could use an arc filter but even those are limited in effectiveness. If you have a mill that has plenty of ram or you are set up for FNC/DNC and program length is not an issue -cool, then go for it. But if you were to choose a more primitive method of cutting say 2d contour -now your code is vastly shorter with nothing more then an arc/radius move about the Z/Y plane. Furthermore you could program 1 arc (non-compound radius) and subroutine it across the length of your fret board for the entire scale length using a local subroutine (for the arc) and some macro variables (for the fret positions minus the offset).
All of the advice you guys have given is good and solid and will work. I merely submit another way.
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