12/29/2012 - Banjo Boys, Chapter 3

Today Monty came up to cut fret grooves in our "Dynaflow" banjo necks.  Clint is taking a well-earned vacation with Sarah over in Asheville, so there were only two banjo boys present and accounted for.  

Fret cross-section

During the last couple of weeks, I had built a miter box to guide the blade of my fret-cutting saw.  The saw has a couple of features that make it special.  The "kerf" or width of the blade is such that the tang of a banjo fret will fit tightly into the slot that it cuts.  Also, the saw has a device that limits how deeply into the wood it can cut.  You don't want to cut much past the depth of the fret tang.  Monty and I measured, marked, and cut each fret groove very carefully, since the position of these frets will determine the accurate intonation of the finished instruments.  Here are the results: