Measure Twice, Check it again and then cut!!

[ArmstrongLutherie]

OK, this is probably a word to the already wise but I thought it was worth mentioning...
One of my students is making a multi-scale instrument (Fan fret) and he (on his 4th build and a very competent woodworker) used the fret scale calculator at ekips.org to get it laid out accurately. The site allows for a paper template to be printed. All went well, template looked good and the slots were cut with great care and attention to getting them exactly as per the template. When time came to layout the fretboard on the neck blank to get the body join in position things seemed amiss. Long story short, when the template was printed he had the printer setting set to "Fit to Page" so the template got scaled down a small amount which wasn't obvious to the naked eye.

Only cost in this case is a new fretboard and the time to cut the slots again. Lesson learned - Check the template is right before relying on it!

[kiwigeo]

OK, this is probably a word to the already wise but I thought it was worth mentioning...
One of my students is making a multi-scale instrument (Fan fret) and he (on his 4th build and a very competent woodworker) used the fret scale calculator at ekips.org to get it laid out accurately. The site allows for a paper template to be printed. All went well, template looked good and the slots were cut with great care and attention to getting them exactly as per the template. When time came to layout the fretboard on the neck blank to get the body join in position things seemed amiss. Long story short, when the template was printed he had the printer setting set to "Fit to Page" so the template got scaled down a small amount which wasn't obvious to the naked eye.

Only cost in this case is a new fretboard and the time to cut the slots again. Lesson learned - Check the template is right before relying on it!

Had the same experience when I did my Gore multiscale build. I gave away trying to get an accurate paper template and did up my own spreadsheet with nut to fret measurements for top and bottom strings and marked directly to the fretboard using the figures. IMO Involving a printer and paper in the fret cutting process is just introducing more sources of error.