Fret slotting station
Beta This jig is in beta: the files are generated and checked, but the design may still change. Check the drawing against your instrument before you cut.
What you need to buy
Designations, not links: a shop link dies within months and a dead one reads as a recommendation nobody stands behind any more. Every part here is a standard item you can search for.
| Part | How many | What it does, and where such a thing is found |
|---|---|---|
| PMMA GS 5 mm | about 0.3 m² | Template, base plate and the fit coupon, from one clear sheet. If you print the base plate instead, only the template has to be cut — and the feed tables can be any flat 5 mm strip: a plexi offcut, HDF, or printed. |
| 625ZZ (5 × 16 × 5) | 4 | The guide rollers the saw plate runs between. |
| 623ZZ (3 × 10 × 4) | 2 | The two fixed stops the template registers against. |
| M3 × 20 screw + M3 nut + M3 washer | 2 of each | Axles for the two fixed stop bearings. The nut goes UNDER the base plate and the washer under the bearing — unless you print the base plate, which has both nut pockets built in and then needs no counterbores in the plywood. |
| MR63ZZ (3 × 6 × 2.5) | 1 | The indexer roller that drops into each notch. |
| Ø3 × 16 dowel pin, hardened, h6 | 1 | The indexer roller's axle. Pressed in, with one drop of cyanoacrylate — nothing can hold it from below. |
| Cyanoacrylate glue | one drop | On the dowel before it is pressed in. The press fit alone will not hold in PETG — the plastic creeps, and that joint is loaded and unloaded at every fret. |
| M5 × 50 socket screw + nut | 4 | Axles for the guide rollers. |
| M6 × 40 screw + thin nut (DIN 439) + nut | 4 of each | The depth stop — one set per half. The thin nut is captive, the ordinary one locks it. |
| M6 × 70 screw + nut | 2 of each | The board hold-downs, with a printed knob and foot on each. |
| Printed star knob + printed Ø12 foot | 2 of each | The hold-downs' printed halves. They come out of the station bundle — nothing to buy, but they have to be printed before the board can be clamped down. |
| M4 × 25 screw + nut | 3 of each | Two preload the guide rollers, one tensions the indexer. |
| Compression spring — OD 4.5–5.5, wire 0.5–0.7, free 15–20, 3–8 N/mm | 1 | Holds the indexer roller in its notch, and it is the ONLY thing that does: the flexure leaves are straight when the roller is seated. A range rather than a part number — that is a ballpoint-pen spring, and the preload screw takes up whatever the one you found leaves over. |
| M6 × 30 screw + washer + nut | about 10 of each | Bridge, indexer and stop blocks onto the base plate. |
| Wood screws 4 × 30 | about 8 | Base plate and feed tables down onto the plywood. |
| Plywood 18 mm, 700 × 250 | 1 | The board everything is screwed to. With the CUT base plate, two counterbores go in it before assembly — the DXF carries them on a layer of its own. With the PRINTED base plate there is nothing to drill. |
| Double-sided tape, thin (no foam), 25 mm | 1 roll | Holds the fingerboard to the template. Foam tape lets the board move under the saw, which is the one thing it must not do. |
| PETG filament (PLA for the rigid parts) | about 250 g | PETG is required for the bridge and the indexer: both carry printed flexures under standing load, and PLA creeps. |