Video Transcript

Hi. This is Rex Kropff at Rex Guitar Works in San Jose, California. And today I'm talking about how to make a fretboard for a guitar. Fretboards for a guitar usually start with a piece of rosewood, ebony or maple. This one's already been milled to the general shape. Start out by laying out the fret board's shape with a contrasting pencil. The fretboard is then taken to the ban saw, cut to profile. Once we have the basic fretboard size I'll use a fretboard scale or another fret board to mark the fret intervals. This is done all the way down the finger board to the number of frets you want on that guitar. Once the fretboard has been marked I use a gauged fretting saw that cuts a slot exactly the right size for the fret tangs, squared up to the fingerboard and set to a depth that only clears the fret tang. Once the fret slots are cut I use a radius sanding block on the top of the finger board to sand the shape of the finger board into the piece of wood. Once that's been done we have a slotted radius fingerboard ready to mount on the neck. This is Rex at Rex Guitar Works showing you how to make a fretboard for your guitar.