Installing Fretboard Binding and Frets

Sunday, June 28, 2009.

This week was dedicated to binding the fretboard and then installing the frets. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but these two steps took an unexpectedly long time (true for a novice like me, I am sure, less I suspect once you have done it a few times).

After having completed cutting my fret slots, my next step was to bend and install the binding on the fretboard. The binding I bought is a white plastic strip that measures .060" thick x .250" wide. Being stiff and relatively brittle, the first step is to shape it to the contours of the fretboard and then glue it in place. Shaping is done with heat and the recommended glue to attach it to the ebony fretboard is weld-on cement.

During my research, I read several stories by folks who, using heat-guns to shape their binding, had overheated it and “turned it to ash”. This is good to know since I already have a heat-gun and it is the method I chose to use. Other heating methods include boiling water and hot sand or glass beads and I will probably try the boiling water method when it comes time to shape the binding for the body, but for this, I used the heat gun.

At the base of the fretboard there are several relatively sharp curves around which I needed to be quite sure that my bends were accurate, especially with respect to each other. To accomplish this, I made a small jig out of some scrap wood and drill bits.

To make this, I traced the outline of my fretboard onto the wood and then found appropriately sized drill bits that roughly matched the inside diameter of each of the bends. As you can see, I drilled the holes and then used the bits themselves as my “posts” to bend the binding around (these photos are of my first attempt at this jig where I tried to use a rod in one location rather than a drill bit - it didn’t work out so well, so I ended up making another jig). By holding the binding between the bits and then carefully applying heat, it was pretty easy to get the curves where I needed them.


Because I have a sharp corner at the base of the fretboard, I made my binding from two pieces. If you have a different contour for yours, you might want to make this from a single piece of binding. Using weld-on cement from Stew-Mac, I glued my first piece to the fretboard and held it with a combination of spring clamps and C-clamps.

Gluing turned out to be a less than perfect operation. It seems that the cement needs to be applied relatively heavy and then dries pretty quickly. I did not expect this and was not as speedy when applying my clamps as I should have. Consequently I ended up having to re-glue several places. Once I did, though, it seems to hold well.

In the second photo above, you can also see a shiny spot where the glue got on the surface of the fretboard. When this happened, I was worried that it might damage the wood or cause a stain but this turns out to not be the case. Once everything dried (24 hours) and I scraped the binding down to the thickness of the fretboard, the glue scraped right off.

Time to install the frets.

Fretwire seems to come generally in two forms - long rolls and short, straight sections. If you are a serious builder looking to make many instruments, it probably makes sense to buy your fretwire in bulk, or roll form. If you are only making one or two, like me right now, it makes sense to buy just what you need. So I bought two lengths of straight sections.

Now one of the things I read, written repeatedly by various luthiers, is that it is best to curve or arch the fret wire a little bit so that when installing it, the ends make contact before the center. This is to prevent the ends from popping out again after they are installed. Apparently this is relatively common when the wire is not arched but not so much if it is. So, wanting to do this, I looked for a way to do it. As it turns out, you can bend it by hand (the method I ended up using), cut a groove in your workbench and pull the wire through it (similar to the method you might use to curl strips of paper by pulling them down across the edge of a table), or build/buy a bending device from one of the luthier supply houses. Bending by hand, while being pretty easy, was also pretty inconsistent, but I think it worked out well enough for me.

Once I had a gentle curve in the wire, it was time to cut to length. The method I ended up using for the majority of my wires was to hold the wire against the fretboard and, using a standard set of side cutters, cut the wire as closely as possible to the edge of the fretboard. This method allows the wires to hang most of the way over the binding when installed.


Obviously, since the binding itself does not have slots cut in it, I needed to trim the “tang” on the wire at both ends. To do this, I used a grinding disk on my Dremel to cut away about 1/8” of the tang.

Then it was a simple case of hammering the frets into the slots on the fretboard. For this I used a hard plastic mallet while holding the fretboard back against the anvil section of my vice. To aid with the ends-before-center idea of the curved fretwire, I tapped in both ends first before tapping in the center. Here is what it looked like after installing the first three frets.

I don’t really like the look of the first two fret wires so I decided going to replace them but figured I better wait until all the other frets were installed before doing that.


Here it is after all the wires were installed. I do have some extra wire left so I will be replacing those first two frets.


And, finally, here is what I did toward making the fretboard extension. It is made from a scrap piece of maple and will be attached at the base of the neck under the fretboard for extra support.


As you can see from this picture, something is not quite right. I suspect that the soundboard is too thick right below where the extension makes contact so my current thought is to scrape and sand it lower and then, where needed, trim the extension to match.

With the fretboard laying on the neck and the nut (yet to be shaped) in place for spacing, it looks and feels pretty good. It even appears that the 15th fret is pretty much aligned with the break line where the neck and body meet as it should.

As I looked at this side view for the first time, I was concerned with the gap between the neck and the back of the fretboard. Having laid the two together before, I did not find the gap then, but now I do. Then it occurred to me - the difference is the frets. With them installed, there are 30 small “wedges” forcing the top surface apart and, therefore, causing it to bow. Once I have it glued on the neck and fretboard extension, this should straighten right out. It also lets me know that I don’t want to do any form of fret leveling until then, either.

Slotting the Fretboard

Saturday, June 20, 2009.

Well, happily, it appears I lied (well, how about "was mistaken"). I was able to get a little a little bit done on the fretboard after all. Not only was I able to cut it to the ebony shape, I was also able to order, receive, and use my Stew-Mac fret saw and miter-box as well. I also learned a couple of valuable things.

The first thing I learned was that it is easier to shape the neck to the fretboard than it is to shape the fretboard to the neck. I’ll explain - the fretboard, as a whole, consists of the ebony veneer (or whatever hardwood you end up using - I am using ebony), the binding, and finally the frets. In Siminoff’s book, he has you shape the neck and then, later, go build the fretboard assembly. This is fine, assuming you are careful enough right from the beginning to not allow yourself to cut the neck too close to its finished width. I did and, as I now know, I also went to far in a couple of places.

Another way thai I now know about, is to make the fretboard assembly first (since it is flat and thin it is much easier to control its dimensions) and then use it as your template for the final shaping of the neck. Why is this easier, you might ask? Well, for me anyway, having the fretboard done first gives me a real-world limit that, for some reason, is just psychologically better than a template - I know that the fretboard is what I will ACTUALLY be using and I cannot afford to make the neck narrower than it or I have to start over. With the template, however, I'm never quite sure where exactly to stop. It might be just me, but there it is.

So for this mandolin now, I am having to make the fretboard a bit narrow to match the neck, but since it’s mine and not for anyone else, this is something I can live with. It’s a learning thing, after all.

To get the proper shape then for the fretboard, I started by cutting the ebony blank to the shape of Siminoff’s template. This gave me the correct length and shape, especially for the base. I then held the initial cutout against the neck and traced its shape onto the back of the ebony and then, because I am going to bind this with some 0.06” thick plastic binding, I offset the traced line by about 0.05”. I then re-cut the ebony to its new, narrower dimension, ready for the binding. Once the binding is installed and the assembly is attached to the neck, I should have just enough overhang to allow me to scrape the binding to match the neck without making it look too thin.

All of this I did last Saturday and, before setting out for my business trip, I also ordered my fret saw and miter box from Stewart-MacDonald. When I returned on Friday evening, there on my desk sat my new saw and miter box, just begging to get used, so today I did. This is also where I learned my other lesson for the week - cut your fret slots BEFORE you cut your fretboard to shape. Why? Because the wood is still square (or at least you should be able to make it that way) and this is really helpful when using a miter box which is, by design, cutting the slots perpendicular to its sides. Because I had already cut my fretboard sides on an angle, I now had to find a way to line it up so that my slots were cut perpendicular to the centerline of the fretboard. Here is what I did.


In the first photo, you can see I have screwed the miter box down to my workbench. Fortunately, the designer of the box builds the thing with three counter-sunk holes so it can be screwed down without interfering with the work. I then placed a wedge shaped piece of wood inside the miter box to hold the centerline of my fretboard perpendicular to the cross-cut of the saw. This is actually one of the two scrap pieces from when I originally cut out the fretboard from the ebony blank. Once I had this located so that the slots at both ends could be cut, I glued it in place with Titebond. After the glue dried, I cut a slot in it with the fret saw. This served as my locating guide and is shown in the second photo.

The next set of photos show where I lined up and made my first cut.



When I was cutting the first couple of slots, I held the wood with my left hand while working the saw with my right. I figured I didn’t want to mess with having to clamp/unclamp for each of the 30 slots and the slots aren’t very deep...This, I found, is not the best way to do it. Not only was I pulling the wood away from the guide pretty regularly but my left hand got really tired, really quickly. Enough, I said. I used clamps for the rest of the slots - much easier to clamp and unclamp than to try to manually hold the wood with a fatigued hand.

In this shot you can see where I am using some wood cauls to hold the fretboard rather than just the clamps. I initially had to do this because of the design of my workbench and where I chose to screw down the miter box rather than because of the clamps or the work itself. Toward the end as I cut the last few slots, though, it became necessary anyway in order to clamp the work securely, so close to the saw blade. I think this shows up pretty well in the picture.

And here it is after all the slots were cut.

This picture shows that some of the slots are off by a very small amount one way or the other. I credit this to the fact that I cut the fretboard to shape before cutting the slots. Had I slotted it first with a square piece of wood, I feel confident the slots would have been more accurately located and probably more square. Once again though, I think this something I can live with. If it turns out to be enough of an issue once I am finished, I can always remove it (I will be using hide-glue to attach it to the neck) and build a new one to replace it.