Tuesday, July 8, 2003 Yesterday I made the neck and tail blocks and glued them in. To the right, you can see I am gluing the kerfing on the sides. I am using leftover kerfing from the mandolin I made a few summers ago. I had just enough leftover kerfing to do this job!   I bought this fret-slotting box from Stew-Mac. This is actually the very first time I've ever actually slotted my own fingerboard! (Previously, I've just bought pre-slotted fingerboards.) It wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be, actually! A while ago, I had bought a small slab of ebony from my local hardwood store, so I resawed it so I had a 3/16" thick board. I then notched the fret positions with an Exacto knife and sawed away! The fret-slotting box has some adjustable guides so you can control the depth of cut of your fret saw. I found rubbing some candle wax on the saw as I cut the slots helped it go more smoothly. Here's the untapered fingerboard after I have slotted it. I have marked a centerline so I can scribe the taper (you can barely see my scribe marks here) and so I can later inlay a few fingerboard dots. The other white line you see is where I am going to trim the end off.