Using Surgical Tube to hold fingerboard in place - created 07-10-2007

Richards, Ian - 07/10/2007.03:09:06
Trying to carve a living out of wood!

I watched a short program on the Discovery Channel last night about making electric violins. The guy used a length of surgical tube wound around the neck to hold the fingerboard in place whilst glueing. I wondered if anybody had experience of this technique with guitars.

The advantage seemed to be that the tube held itself in place, being soft rubber, it should be capable of exerting a fair amount of pressure if enough turns were used and would keep the fingerboard centered by being wrapped right around the neck.

Is it worth trying on a guitar or is it only good for the relatively small neck on a violin?

I use heavy duty elastic bands that I bought from a stationary supply company that I tie together to make an elastic rope. They provide an incredible amount of clamping pressure. I still use a couple of brads in the fret slots to locate the fret board and keep it from moving while being clamped.

It was only [cheap] for a huge bag and I use them for all kinds of things. Also use the elastic rope to help clamp in bindings/pruflings after they've be glued and taped.

That is the method stewmac recommends for their kits, only they suggest large rubber bands.

Another alternative is to use the elastic material from the sewing section of your favorite box store. It comes in lots of different widths. YOu will get a bit of glue sticking to it but I doesn't seem to affect it at all. It's easier to find than the rubber tubing.

This is interesting. Is the surgical tubing strong enough to hold down a guitar fingerboard? Mine curl at the edges when using water-based glues (HHG, Titebond) unless I use a heavy caul.

I've used "elastic clamps" which are long strips cut from truck inner tubes on some odd projects. On the plus side they don't cost a dime and are infinitely customizable. The down side is that they make the clean up of squeeze-out impossible, or at least until after the glue sets up and you remove them. Don't think I'll be using them when I glue up my first fret board (on a tin GLO).

I guess if surgical tube & rubber bands will do , then bungie cords should do as well,I'm just finishing up the fingerboard on my 1st build so I'll let you know how it works.

Schennelly

A great product for this application and also for securing binding while gluing is exercise bands or tubing. I recently bought a 25 foot piece of tubing for [cheap - staff]. You can buy this stuff with different degrees of elasticity and strength. I bought mine from a company in Quebec. I could post the URL if it were permissible??

The URL is fine, but no prices, please.

I tried all of the above, and they'll all work. The major problem is preventing 'creeping' of the part as you're adding bands/turns of elastic material. Another problem is distortion of the parts if one does not pay attention to where and how much pressure is built up.

Surgical latex tubing is quite stretchy and can exert immense pressure, but it's expensive and will rot over time. Ditto for exercise bands. Silicone tubing is a good choice but expensive. Bungee cords with fabric covers might get caught in the glue. Ordinary rubberbands are cheap and effective, but they can be annoying when they break. Automotive/bicycle innertube will work ok too, but arenot always available in my area (hard to believe, I know!).

Bicycle innertubes not available????

Bill, hmm, maybe you're right. It never occurred to me about the currently cheap price of buying a brand new bicycle innertube and then cutting it up into strips. But somehow it seems to me that doing that goes against my primal 'inner kid'. I'd rather that it would roll a few miles down the road first, before it arrives at my place.

Swing by your local bike shop. The guys at my shop were more than happy to give me popped ones that they had replaced. They gave me a few weird looks when I asked, but then thought it was pretty cool once I explained what I needed it for.

ok, I'll do that.

Hey, it looks like this was not such an odd idea after all then. I take the point about the cost of surgical tubing, so I think I will experiment with bicycle tubing and see how it goes. I think car or truck tube would be a bit too thick.

I use the plastic threaded fingerboard clamps from Stewmac to hold the fretboard edges in place, then wrap it with the big rubber bands they sell when I'm gluing fingerboards on already carved necks.

"I think car or truck tube would be a bit too thick." Not a problem Ian, you simply cut your bands narrower/wider to suit. I've used strips cut from truck innertubes from 1/4" to 3/4" wide, depending on the task at hand. Discarded bike innertubes work well too.

The bungie cords worked well,my fret board is attached as solid as a rock. I cleaned up as much squeeze out as I could and had no problem with the the bungie cords sticking to the neck.