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After a bunch of classicals, I'm finally getting close to wrapping up my first SS. I just had a near disaster trying to glue on the fingerboard. I had all the clamps ready and even test fit the clamps around the body/neck joint. Everything looked fine, so I spread the glue everywhere and before I know it I can't get the edges clamped down anywhere. When I build classicals the neck isn't carved yet and the fretboards are flat so clamping up is very easy. On the SS, when I clamp down the center there are gaps along the edges even though the gluing surfaces were dead flat. If I try to close up the edges, I can't get good clamping pressure because the neck is already carved. Do you guys have any tricks or do I need to just make a clamping caul with similar radius to the top and bottom to get a tight fit?

John

 Check with LMI or Stew-Mac for fingerboard clamps.

The clamps are a flexible plastic to wrap around the neck.

I usually use 6 to 8 with a caul on the fretboard.

Works great.

I have some of these clamps. They are great.

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Guitars, guitars and more guitars.

Your caul should contact near the edges of the board, not in the center.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

I'll try to get pics of our auto-contouring cauls that we use for fingerboard gluing.   They're made of 1/8" ABS plastic suspended down the edges with risers. As you apply clamp pressure, the pressure is first at the center of the 'board, and then the plastic contours to the radius of the 'board and gives perfect pressure.

On a lot of our necks, we use a .075" thick fingerboard and bend it to the radius that's machined into the neck blank. These auto-contouring cauls work great for this, giving us perfect cylindrical or conical surfaces with excellent and gap-free edge seams.    We wind up with 100% surface contact pressure.

I used to use a clamping caul that was simply a piece of 8/4 material with a dado out of the center so that the pressure is placed at the outer edge only. Simple to make. You don't need any pressure in the center if you keep the edges down. 

Nowadays I use my vacuum rig. In any case, you should install locating pins of some sort to keep things from sliding around. Some people put pins in two locations that will later have dots.  I use short sewing pins through the #1 and #14 fret kerfs and remove them later. It's amazing how you can dry fit these easily and then discover how slippery the glue is when you go to clamp up.

Greg N

This is that poor old naked cat thing again.......

I used to use the below method with two giant rubber bands available from Stew-Mac.  Dan Earlywine's trick is to shim the clamped neck upward about 1/8" to counter back bow when using a water based glue like Titebond.  This worked OK for me for many guitars.



These days I use West Systems epoxy and a custom fret board clamping caul available from Sir John Watkins at CNCGuitarParts.com.  This one is a 16" constant radius although other radiuses and compound radiuses are available from John. 

Note that no clamping occurs in the very center of the neck where the truss rod slot is and hopefully the truss rod is too..........  And no that is a mistake that I have not made - yet.......

There are also indentations to clear registration pins.  Sorry I have no pics of it in use but it works great and just nails the neck and fret board perfectly flat with the precision of John's CNC and this hard maple block.  Highly recommended.

I've made up clamping cauls that apply pressure to the edges of the board and had success, however, this tool looks promising.  LMI carries it:

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Bruce Herrmann
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."

I use big ol' rubber bands like the picture Hesh posted.  Very even pressure and about as low tech as you can get.

I have a radiused sanding board that perfectly matches the radius on the fingerboards that I use.

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Reguards,

Ken H

I like using some kind of caul vs a wrap. I made a caul similar to the lmi one pictured and I rest it on a sturdy, flat surface and clamp everything together. Since I started fretting first and clamping that way, I almost never have anything more than minor fret leveling to do. Sometimes no leveling.

It just seems like, no matter how flat everything seems before gluing, if you don't hold if flat while gluing, stresses get introduced and you end up with work to do.

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

This how I glued my fingerboard. The fingerboard has a 16" radius and I made a 16" radius caul and a cork lined caul for the back of the pre carved neck. Also a caul for inside of the guitar for clamping the fingerbard extension.