CBG #1 Fretting and Finishing

I decided to fret my guitar. I think it came out fairly well although some of the frets are not exactly parallel.

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!