Making the sanding sled was easy enough. I ripped the bottom piece to the same width as the radius beam, plus a hair, and then ripped some narrower pieces which I attached to the sides. What took the most time was making the handle for the radius beam. I used the handle from one of my planes as a template.
After about 30 minutes of sanding...
And I still wasn't done. You can see the sawdust isn't collecting evenly in the fret slots.
I've read from men little more than half my age say this was bull work. They won't get any argument from me! And trying to keep even pressure is much harder than I expected. I decided I would prefer an easier and more precise method for putting the radius on the fretboard.
I saw on an acoustic guitar forum, one luthier employed the router method and used PVC pipe as guide rails. It looked pretty simple to make. He screwed the PVC pipe down. I decided to rout half-round grooves in each side of the MDF base and attach the PVC with construction adhesive and let it sit clamped overnight.
I'm going to use a mortising router bit. This one leaves a very smooth finish. And I'm going to install some sides on the router base and fit one side with a dust collection port. Not sure how much good that will do but it's something.
You can see the construction adhesive oozing out from the side of the PVC. The half-round groove positioned the PVC exactly straight and parallel to each other.
I woke up around 3 AM, wide awake. I realized that with the same radius all along the fretboard, after the fretboard is trimmed to fit the neck, the headstock end will be thicker on the sides than the tail end. I was looking into a Floyd Rose trem and learned they supply a locking nut with their trems. While the bridge has a fixed radius of 12", the locking nut has a radius of 10". Making a conical radius fretboard would be difficult. And I couldn't use the sanding beam for fret leveling. But the luthiers I've gleaned most of my information from seem to all use a consistent radius all along the fretboard.
Do I need to be concerned? Should the side thickness of the fretboard along the neck be the same all the way? Do I need to compensate for that? I'm kind of stuck here.
Back to the library...