First Ukulele Build, some noob questions :)

Hello everyone, first uke build here and i have some questions. I had purchased plans for a uke build from a guy in England. He had said in his construction notes that he had purchased a mandolin preslotted fretboard from stewmac so i had also purchased them.
After i got them home and put a caliper to them they seem close to a soprano uke, which is the size im building but not perfect. I understand i cut it down to 16 frets, but do the fret slots have to be perfect? I understand how important the nut to bridge measurement is, but from the charts ive seen these arent right on, close tho. Any help would be greatly appreciated. thanks

heres a pic of the style of it

As I understand your question: You purchased a pre-sloted fingerboard for a soprano uke and now you would like to shorten it by cutting off the bridge side end? The way I see it, it makes no difference if you keep the bridge the proper scale length distance from the nut for a soprano... Do the fred slots have to be perfect: Yes absolutely they do, but this is a separate issue from scale length. Also, I don't see where Stew-Mac sells pre-sloted soprano fingerboards.

This is the fretboard the gentleman who I got the plans from said to get
http://www.stewmac.com/Materials_an...s_and_Wood/Mandolin/Mandolin_Fingerboard.html

A 13.875 scale (13 7/8") fretboard is not unusual for a soprano ukulele. You could buy a mandolin/ukulele fret board from Luthier Mercantile (lmii.com) and pay for slotting for about the same price. For Indian Rosewood, $6.65 plus $9.00 fret slotting service. This would give you a choice to select between 12 - 17 frets and have a normal looking fretboard tail. Just make sure your 12th fret is halfway between nut and saddle regardless if you put the 12th or 14th fret at the neck/body joint. Search Google for "scale compensation" to find out about adding a little length to the 12th fret to saddle dimension.

Oops I missed that you already bought one. Cutting it at the 17th slot (leaving you with 16 frets) should work as you said.