I first marked out the fret lines with my Gibson fret ruler with a 24-9/16" scale, the shortest scale on the ruler. I used a square to make the lines as parallel as I could.
I then used my fret saw with the acrylic stop. I practiced fretting on a scrap piece of wood and set the acrylic at the right depth. I then cut all the fret slots and hammered the fret wire into the slots and cut the ends off.
I finished the frets by filing down the ends of the frets and then used a straight piece of aluminum square tubing with 220 grit sandpaper taped to it to level the frets.
After the fret work was finished, I started working on the bridge. I used my Dremel drill press as a one axis variable height router to cut a slot in a 1/4" thick piece of oak.
I then used plastic from a cutting board to to act as the actual bridge.
I continued using my Dremel router setup to work the wood into the shape pictured above.
I then adjusted the height of the plastic and finally cut slots in the bridge for the strings. I am not going to glue the cutting board plastic in place, it fits tight into the slot but I did glue the oak base to the top of the cigar box.
I the finished up the nut made from the same cutting board plastic, but I did glue it to the neck.
The end result!
I tried to glue my family's crest onto the back. I don't think it turned out so great though.
Time to start on another one!
