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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA6IukKY ... re=related
Frame 3:03 shows what appears to be surface grinding the fret board radius with coolant.
Never heard of such goings on.
Nelson

Nelson-
I think they are grinding the MOP inlays down in that shot- but I also wonder about getting the FB wet - I guess it is dried off pretty quickly with the air jet, though.

You gotta laugh: 'Custom shop'....with the rack of 20 identical bodies rolling by, and the stick-on logo....
With all that CNC, you'd think they could inlay the logo?

Cheers
John

I wondered about that too, but a quick Google shows that Gibson also does it.

"Fingerboard Line
At the beginning of the neck line machine called a "surface grinder" wet sands with a diamond wheel and makes the inlay flush with the fret board."



So much for "water on wood no good". ;->

...Athena

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http://home.comcast.net/~ath3na3/Portfolio/Port.html

Why not just run the board thru a thickness sander?
There must be some advantage to keeping the inlay cool?
Nelson

Edit: I thought perhaps they were dressing the stone to the fretboard radius.
I've never tried "grinding" ebony.

They might be using the water just to keep the dust down. It gets pretty ugly pretty quick when you're dealing with ebony dust, and you don't want your workers getting the black lung.

The grinder is less elegant than Taylor's solution of using a 90 degree sanding drum, though Taylor goes through a lot of paper on it and cooks the right angle heads pretty regularly. There are better ways to do it both in and out of the CNC, but Taylor's using the best method I've seen in a factory.

(Check out the Dean Guitars video that cyborg posted in another thread...they've got a guy with a sanding block doing every neck!)

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

Carvin radius' the FB with the wet grinder. Obviously it would only work with ebony, but I'm sure it makes their abrasive last forever.

That's interesting, Sheldon.
S'pose they use a stone or a drum on the surface grinder?
Wonder how Taylor comes up with "concave paper" to fit their concave drum?
Maybe starts out flat and a vacuum pulls it concave? Nah, wouldn't think so.
One things for sure, compound radius is out of the picture, right?

I'm pretty sure it's the stretchy velcro abrasive from SIA.

They approximate the compound radius by taking passes down the center and along each edge (like a triangle).

I'd have to CAD it up to see how close this gets it, but imagine it's pretty darn good. Pretty creative thinking IYAM