This is a photo of what looks to be a normal fretboard being fretted- BUT, this fretboard is special. It will be added to the third tenor I am now working on, a tenor made entirely of wood that grew within fifty miles of my workshop. I selected Pacific Yew for the fretboard as it was the hardest local wood I knew of. Worried that it would not be hard enough I learned from a knife making blacksmith friend of an amazing technology he and a friend use to toughen knife handles.
They mix a carbon polymer with acetone. The acetone breaks up the polymer atoms into tiny atoms. then the bag of loaded acetone and the wood is put into a vacuum. The carbon loaded acetone penetrates and fills all the pores in the wood. When the wood is removed from the bag, the acetone evaporates leaving the wood pores filled with carbonized polymers. The theory is the Pacific Yew will now be tougher, waterproof, hopefully harder.
I made a glue test and it glues perfectly well, I carefully checked slot locations and the treatment did not effect the distance between frets, so this afternoon I glued it on the uke. Interesting idea.
They mix a carbon polymer with acetone. The acetone breaks up the polymer atoms into tiny atoms. then the bag of loaded acetone and the wood is put into a vacuum. The carbon loaded acetone penetrates and fills all the pores in the wood. When the wood is removed from the bag, the acetone evaporates leaving the wood pores filled with carbonized polymers. The theory is the Pacific Yew will now be tougher, waterproof, hopefully harder.
I made a glue test and it glues perfectly well, I carefully checked slot locations and the treatment did not effect the distance between frets, so this afternoon I glued it on the uke. Interesting idea.
Remember the 12 inch bending pipe I showed you a couple of days ago. I took it down to Hardware Sales saturday and for a mere $4.50 they cut it down to 9 inches which ought to be big enough for anything I will ever build. Now I need to figure how I want to connect it to the heating element. I will post pictures as it progresses.
Above is a really fancy English gig bag called a Fusion. It has incredible padding, pockets in every imaginable place, shoulder straps, a chest strap, This thing would protect a uke in an earthquake. You might want to take a look on the internet. It was bought by a customer in CT who had it sent me from England. Here is her new uke sent off to her today.