Elias Graves
Common misfit
I'm making a guitar, as some of you may know. It's time to get a fretboard since my home harvested Osage Orange hasn't borne fruit 
yet.
Maple is the choice, I believe, so I've been shopping on line.
At Woodcraft, I can get a 3/8"x3"x24" piece of hard maple for $9. I'll have to set the radius and cut the nut slot and fret slots myself. No biggie, but it's a lot of labor doing it with the miter box. Advantage is that I can go to the store and hand pick my board. My Honduran rosewood board on the white guitar was picked from several dozen that I went through. I'm very pleased with it, as most of the boards in the rack I would not want on my guitar.
From Bell Forest Products, I can get a plain maple blank for $7 or a quartersawn blank for $9. Sounds like a good deal to me. I can get a free upgrade to quartersawn.
In finished boards, the price goes way up. I priced one out at LMII to my specs and it came to about $40. Cut to 10" radius and slotted. Kinda high but a big labor savings. The accuracy will be good, too. Sanding a radius with a block or cutting slots without a jig are activities fraught with peril. Maybe worth it.
Then I found Stewart MacDonald's fretboards. A hard maple board slotted and cut to radius for $14! Yes! We have a winner.
But there's a catch. While the radius has been cut, it's not Fender radius. WTF? Who offers tele fretboards with a 12" radius as the only option? I bet no more than 5% of all teles ever made came with a 12" radius. 7 1/2" or 9" are Fender's numbers. Odd.
Anyway, the question.
Can I reshape the 12" radius to 10" without thinning it too much? All the material removed will come from the outside edges of the board. I assume since these are "finished" blanks, the thickness has already been cut at the factory. I fear there won't even be space to add side dots on the edge.
yet. Maple is the choice, I believe, so I've been shopping on line.
At Woodcraft, I can get a 3/8"x3"x24" piece of hard maple for $9. I'll have to set the radius and cut the nut slot and fret slots myself. No biggie, but it's a lot of labor doing it with the miter box. Advantage is that I can go to the store and hand pick my board. My Honduran rosewood board on the white guitar was picked from several dozen that I went through. I'm very pleased with it, as most of the boards in the rack I would not want on my guitar.
From Bell Forest Products, I can get a plain maple blank for $7 or a quartersawn blank for $9. Sounds like a good deal to me. I can get a free upgrade to quartersawn.
In finished boards, the price goes way up. I priced one out at LMII to my specs and it came to about $40. Cut to 10" radius and slotted. Kinda high but a big labor savings. The accuracy will be good, too. Sanding a radius with a block or cutting slots without a jig are activities fraught with peril. Maybe worth it.
Then I found Stewart MacDonald's fretboards. A hard maple board slotted and cut to radius for $14! Yes! We have a winner.
But there's a catch. While the radius has been cut, it's not Fender radius. WTF? Who offers tele fretboards with a 12" radius as the only option? I bet no more than 5% of all teles ever made came with a 12" radius. 7 1/2" or 9" are Fender's numbers. Odd.
Anyway, the question.
Can I reshape the 12" radius to 10" without thinning it too much? All the material removed will come from the outside edges of the board. I assume since these are "finished" blanks, the thickness has already been cut at the factory. I fear there won't even be space to add side dots on the edge.
Seriously, if you are "making" the guitar, pick out the fret board in person.
