Fret slotting jig

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drumgerry

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I'm about to buy either the LMI or Stewmac jig and wondered if anyone who had some experience of them could tell me how well they work. I know the LMI jig is a fair bit more expensive but it does look well designed and sturdy. Is the Stewmac jig as good?

Cheers

Gerry
 
Although I don't have any experience of either of them I don't see why the Stewmac jig shouldn't work just as well as the LMI. The LMI seems a bit over-engineered for what it is. If uou do buy the Stewmac jig, buy the Japanese saw that goes with it, not the 'gentlemans' saw. Everyone says it works much better.

But why not save yourself a lot of money (that you can spend on tonewood!) and make your own. This one works perfectly well.

Acbass196.jpg
 
I can almost guarantee Dave that if I made your jig it wouldn't be accurate enough. If I was to have even a remote chance of making it properly I'd need to see a detailed photo how-to (was that hint subtle enough!) . Interestingly I have the very same green handled Dozuki as you have (bought from Dick tools!).

Gerry
 
My only gripe about the stewmac jig is that there are four blocks used to set the saw height/depth of cut, and each block needs to be set separately. I've found that using some shims to hold them to the right/same height while I tighten them down works best. I've not used the LMI jig, but if it doesn't address that problem, it's no better than the StewMac one, which works very well otherwise.

and yes, the Japanese saw from stewmac works really well.
 
Not sure about the details of height adjustment on the LMI jig Matt. Don't suppose anyone knows whether the LMI templates work with the Stewmac jig as I see LMI have a dual 13.5"/17" scale length template?

Gerry
 
The LMI templates are too wide for the Stewmac jig.
The Stewmac jig is very sturdy.
It has also been reported that the Stewmac templates are more accurate.
Fred
 
drumgerry said:
Not sure about the details of height adjustment on the LMI jig Matt. Don't suppose anyone knows whether the LMI templates work with the Stewmac jig as I see LMI have a dual 13.5"/17" scale length template?

Gerry
Click to expand...

I cut the 13.5" side off mine in my band saw, and just use the 17" side starting on the fifth fret for soprano and second fret for concert. I believe Chuck does something similar, but he uses a 25.5" (can't guarantee that's the one--working from memory) template from StewMac on his table saw.
 
Yes, I use the Stew Mac Fender 25.5" template for all three sizes of ukes I build. It's the most accurate one I've run across.
If you have a table saw Matt I would really recommend foregoing cutting slots by hand, in favor of the power blade method. The blades are expensive but I've cut 300 fret boards on a single blade before replacing it. Cutting slots by hand gets old real quick. It means building a sled but the results will be a lot more accurate with the table saw set up as well.
 
Well actually Chuck I do have a cheapish table saw - it takes 10"/254mm blades so I assume the 6" stewmac one would be ok. It has a 16mm arbor as well so I guess the stewmac's 5/8" arbor would fit as well. I do like the sound of using the saw as I don't really use it much for anything else. Don't have a clue how to make the sled so could anyone help or give me a link to instructions? I see that a 25.5 inch scale coincides with a 13.5 and 17 inch scale at points lower down the fingerboard. I assume the Stewmac 25.5 inch Fender template has enough slots in it or are you having to improvise for the lowest uke fret positions? Please excuse my stupid questions but I want to get this right!
 
Yes, you might have to add a couple of slots for a soprano, depending upon how many frets you like to have. The scale lengths I get from the 25.5" template are tenor: 433mm, concert: 385mm, soprano: 343mm. I'll see if I can post a pic of my fret slotting sled later.
 
I love this forum. All the posts in this thread have been superb and a great help to me so thanks to all. I'm thinking the table saw route is the one I want to go down. Still don't really know how the whole shebang works though - how the template and indexing pin and sled thing operate together. I have a rough idea but I've never seen the set up in operation.
 
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