Rough Cutting a Fret Board Blank

The fret board is possibly the single most critical piece on a dulcimer. If it is not exactly dimensionally correct, the dulcimer could possible be impossible to play and if the frets are in the wrong position, it won't sound right and you may not want to play it anyhow. It is the purpose of this section to show one way of cutting dimensionally correct fret boards.

Wood as we use it is an extremely unstable material. The natural state of wood is in the form of a tree in a forest which seems to be where it finds the most stability but we cut it down, dry it, shape it and use it for all kinds of wonderful applications all of which are beyond the purpose that nature intended for it. Precision equipment is not made out of wood for the reason of durability but also the reason of stability. If a person has to make an accurate measurement and has both a metal and a wooden yard stick, the metal yard stick is just about always the better choice. The single greatest reason for instability in wood is the moisture content which we take care of by drying the wood such that it will no longer loses it's shape due to shrinkage from to moisture loss. Proper drying and moisture stabilization is a whole different subject though so we'll just assume for now that the wood you're working with is properly dried and moisture stabilized. The second greatest reason for instability in wood is the grain of the wood itself. Unlike the metal yard stick that is made from a reasonably uniform material, the wooden yard stick is made from a grained material that nature seems to have done a wonderfully random job of placing various textures in. The same grains that oftem make a dulcimer such a beautiful looking and sounding instrument also cause the base material to often be a bit unstable. In most applications, this is not a problem and even slight instability in most dulcimer parts can be worked around but it is extremely critical in a fret board. For a fret board to be good, it has to be straight and true. All of the wood we use in a dulcimer is cut from a larger piece of wood. Even if the larger piece of wood is dimensionally stable, that does not mean the smaller piece we cut from it will be dimensionally stable. Cutting the piece effects for the different grains inneract with each other and can alter the stability of the wood. A board can be straight and true for 100 years on the side of a barn during all kind of extreme weather and yet after being taken down and stored in the resonably stable conditions of a garage for just a few months, can aquire some rather ugly twists. It sems kind of odd but for those 100 years, it was being held in position by several nails but once the nails were removed, it was allowed to find the shape it really wanted to be. It's much the same with a smaller piece of wood cut from a larger piece. Up until the time it was cut, it was held in place by the overall grain structure of the larger piece but once free from it, it could seek the shape it felt more stable at. It may sound like a losing battle but it's not. It's just something that has to be taken into consideration when cutting a fret board.

Enough Talk. It's time to get on with cutting a fret board blank.

Whatever size fret board you cut is completely up to you but I use a 3/4" thick by 1 1/2" wide by 32" long fret board blank when building my dulcimers so that's what I'll be cutting today. We'll be cutting this fret board from stabilized and aged rough sawn walnut. Well be starting with a slab that's about 7 quarters thick (1 3/4"), about 5 1/2" wide and around 36 inches long. We'll be cutting several fret boards from this piece. Most pieces of wood cut this thick are plane sawn across their larger face and quarter saw across the smaller edge face. That's the main reason I cut my fret boards from thicker slabs of wood as it gives me that quarter sawn face to work from. Quarter sawn wood tends to be more uniform in grain structure and as a result, both stronger and more dimensionally stable. The fretted face of our fret board will be from the quarter sawn edge of this slab.

The first step is to smooth the larger faces of the slab. I could do this with a planer but I prefer to use a drum sander as all I'm really wanting to do right now is just take the rough sawn bur off the larger faces of the slab. Since I'm also planning to cut the fret boards from the 7 quarter face, at this time, I also don't want to dress the wood down to much below 1 5/8". The reason for keeping that extra 1/8" will become apparent in just a bit.

The drum sander should give you two smooth and parallel faces but you still need at least one smooth edge face that is perfectly square with the two larger faces. I do this with an edge sander. This can also be done with a jointer but given a choice, I always prefer sanding as opposed to cutting as it gives a smoother face. Be sure to first check your sander or jointer with a good square to make sure you have a true 90 degree angle.

I now use a band saw to cut the slab into several fret board blanks that are 1" thick. The reason for the extra thickness will become apparent as we move on. I could also use a table saw to make these cuts but a band saw has a smaller kerf and wastes less wood. I also want the cutting marks left in the wood that a band saw leaves for later gauging. This slab yielded me 5 fret boards with very little waste. Please note that I have the upper saw guide set up higher for the purposes of the picture. In actual practice, it should be set much closer to the piece you're cutting.

We now have rough cut fret board blanks with two smooth finished and two yet to be finished surfaces. Their cross sectional measurements are somewhere around 1" by 1 5/8". We're getting closer but the most critical work is still coming. As I started earlier, once cut from the larger piece of wood which has always before stabilized it dimensionally, the fret board may now have found a different shape than you cut it to to be stable. No matter how accurate and precise your cuts were, to still may not be dimensionally correct. We're at a point now that we have to start correcting for that. Your eyes are your first level of quality control at this point. From the end, sight down the length of each side and look for bows or twists. It's a good possibility that at least one is there. No matter how slight, they need corrected. If you can't see any, don't count on your eyes alone and recheck the board with an accurate set of straight edges. If the board is twisted, throw it away. Getting a twist out of a fret board is rarely successful. If you use quartersawn wood, a twist is also uncommon. If the board shows no twists or bows which is also extremely rare, then go ahead and start working it down on the drum sander but be sure to check it again after every pass through. If the board is bowed along any face, then keep reading.