Official Luthiers Forum!

Nothing groundbreaking here, but I always enjoy seeing others' jigs, so I thought I'd post pics of these jigs I finished up last night.

This is my fret slotting jig. For now I'm not going to use templates, I'll just tape my Stewmac fret rules (awaiting the USPS) to the fretboard and then eyeballing it with some magnifying reading glasses.





And here's a jig for routing the end graft, inspired by one or two other jigs I'd seen posted here. I haven't actually used this one yet. Still have some minor mods to make, better knobs, cut down the all-thread, etc...





USPS just delivered my fret scale rules while I was posting this, time to go try them out!

_________________
______________________________
Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Nice Job Jon

Jon,
Looking good buddy! I might cover up the part of the slotting sled that rides over the blade. You cant be too careful. Also, why not go for the templates. Frets are a pretty important thing to get right on and the templates are not that expensive. You could use the same sled and it would be about a 2 minute job to set it up for a template. Either way, have fun.

Homeboy

Jon, great looking jigs and you have the very same kind of table saw that i have, the BT3100, right? Love it!

For the templates, just use WFRET, it's a free program on the internet that will allow you to print any scale length fret spacing you will need, just go down this MIMF page and use John Whitney's downloadable file, about 1/3 of the page:

http://www.mimf.com/link.htm

Hope it helps

Serge

Thanks for the comments and suggestions.

I may go for templates someday, but for now, this works fine. I remember Todd Stock (or was it Todd Rose?) posted a tutorial not too long ago on making your own out templates out of aluminum. I feel pretty confident in "eyeballing" it with magnifying reading glasses for now. I can align the fret scale rule to the edge of the pencil line on the jig, and you'd be surprised how much the reading glasses assist in this.

If I get some plexiglass I'll probably make a guard that will cover over the blade area. I used to do some safety engineering in my last job so I'm pretty conscious about that sort of thing. As it is now my fingers stay way out of the path of the blade, and I've always got a visual on the blade. By the way, I do use an insert in the table saw, it was only removed when I was changing the blade.

I know about Wfret and the other programs, I've also used a spreadsheet from the mimf library and laid out fret spacing in Autocad. If I had access to a printer right now where I could print out the whole fret scale on one sheet of paper without taping sheets together, I might have done that. The Stewmac rules are really nice and won't wrinkle or tear.

_________________
______________________________
Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Jon
I never get tired of seeing pic's of jigs.
Those two look good and I bet they work great
Keep up the good work!

Tom

_________________
http://www.moriciguitar.com

[QUOTE=Serge Poirier] Jon, great looking jigs and you have the very same kind of table saw that i have, the BT3100, right? Love it! [/QUOTE]

Yeah, I saw that on your shop pics, too. I do like this saw a lot. Too bad they don't make it anymore (though you can get it rebranded as Craftsman at Sears). I almost made a jig that would use the sliding miter table, but I ended up figuring this would be easy and would be easily adaptable if I ever get a different table saw.

_________________
______________________________
Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Cool, is this UHMW bars that i see under your sled?

One thing I did on my sled was to put two runners on the bottom. My saw has two slots (don't most?) on the table. So one in each keeps it really stable and gives me less chance to screw up a critical operation.

Glad to see the tail end jig... I need to build something to do that.

Yeah, Serge, that's a UHMW bar. I cut down a piece from one of the random bags of UHMW you can get from Woodcraft.

I would have done two runners like you suggest, Ronn, but this saw isn't the normal setup. It has two slots about 3" apart on a separate accessory table. I was careful to get a real snug fit with the UHMW, so it feels really stable, it won't rock around.

_________________
______________________________
Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Jon, nice looking jigs!

Are you going to post some pics for us after you use them? I would like to see the results.

_________________
Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Thanks Jon!!!


Hi Dave, good to see you my friend, it's been a while! Serge Poirier39082.6184722222

I still need to think through a couple things on the end graft jig... Mainly that I think I need to provide some sort of clearance so I'm not accidentally routing into the jig, yet still have a way to make sure that the jig is lined up correctly with the centerline of the guitar.

Here's some results for the fret slotting jig.


Here's a view from above when I'm aligning the fret scale to the reference line.

_________________
______________________________
Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Looks like it works great Jon!

I have a similar jig myself only I use the Stew Mac templates. Sure beats the old miter box rig I used before.

_________________
Dave Rector
Rector Guitars