Yeah, prolly so. I've been happy with Schutte in Kansas City for about forty years, and love going in there and snooping their scrap bin, and the chances are I'll go on buying from them. It would take a helluva lot of advantage for me to make me take my business away from this third-generation family owned company right in my home town.
For the price of a large board of an exotic [ most are really expensive ] the rockler pre-cuts are a great way to use an exotic fretboard at cheap price. I like the 1/4" x 1 1/2" x 24" zebrawood for 5 bucks. As a maker of custom slides and bridges, I buy a lot of high end exotic`s. I too use a bandsaw to cut them into useable pieces, but for frerboards I`ll stick with rockler.
I've got a real good hardwood supplier in the nearest big city. I can buy hardwood 2x2's from them by the board foot, turn them on their side and get great grain layout. Then it's a piece of cake with the bandsaw. I could do it with the table saw too, but it takes out a huge kerf and I'd lose about half of each 2x2 in kerf by the time I cut the rest of it into fret boards. The bandsaw takes out very narrow kerfs.
After I get better at this I'll try some real exotics. I figured I'd start on red oak, one of my old favorites anyway.
Comments
Yeah, prolly so. I've been happy with Schutte in Kansas City for about forty years, and love going in there and snooping their scrap bin, and the chances are I'll go on buying from them. It would take a helluva lot of advantage for me to make me take my business away from this third-generation family owned company right in my home town.
For the price of a large board of an exotic [ most are really expensive ] the rockler pre-cuts are a great way to use an exotic fretboard at cheap price. I like the 1/4" x 1 1/2" x 24" zebrawood for 5 bucks. As a maker of custom slides and bridges, I buy a lot of high end exotic`s. I too use a bandsaw to cut them into useable pieces, but for frerboards I`ll stick with rockler.
I've got a real good hardwood supplier in the nearest big city. I can buy hardwood 2x2's from them by the board foot, turn them on their side and get great grain layout. Then it's a piece of cake with the bandsaw. I could do it with the table saw too, but it takes out a huge kerf and I'd lose about half of each 2x2 in kerf by the time I cut the rest of it into fret boards. The bandsaw takes out very narrow kerfs.
After I get better at this I'll try some real exotics. I figured I'd start on red oak, one of my old favorites anyway.
A lot of builders use Rockler pre-cut exotic`s for their fret boards http://woodworking.rockler.com/c/lumber
Set a fence on the trusty bandsaw to cut a fret board the thickness of the box top.