Totnes School of Guitar Making say: -

'We've now used the slotter for several fingerboards and it works a treat. It's great to finally have a jig on the market that enables anyone to slot a fingerboard of any scale length to a high degree of accuracy by hand. And it's pretty quick to use too.

We haven't even used a hole plate yet, though I can see that if you're slotting several boards to the same scale length it would be a boon. It's the sort of jig we'd been planning to design for years; the unit is compact and sturdy, the movement smooth and definite and the vernier scale is clear and precise.

If I come across any drawbacks in the design I'll let you know. All in all we're delighted to have it in the workshop.'
Phil Messer, Totnes School of Guitarmaking, Collins Road, Devon, England TQ9 5PJ, UK
www.totnesschoolofguitarmaking.co.uk

(A student has recently said " I've just used your fret slotter jig at the Totnes school of guitar building and it is superb!")

Robbie O'Brien. "My regular method of slotting fretboards was out of action for a couple of weeks because of a ruined saw blade. No problem though as we had your fret slotting jig to fall back on. We slotted fretboards manually during that period with no problem and progress continued on the guitars. Tracy also used it to slot his bouzuki fretboard he is working on. The jig does everything it was designed to do and worked fine. I am glad we had it in the shop or we would have been up a creek without a paddle."

Barry Owen is a most enthusiastic and dedicated luthier. He has exhibited at the Royal College of Music, London, the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, and many other venues, and is well-known in the Midlands for his restorations and repair work.

This is what Barry says of the Universal Fret Slotter: -

"I used your amazing fret slotter on a piece of scrap to copy the scale of a guitar for repair. I got the fret measurements from the computer prog, which was in inches and in metric, and I used the one with the zero fret. After I had cut a few fret slots in the scrap, I compared it with the guitar being repaired and found it spot on, so I went ahead and made a fingerboard out of ebony with the saw I bought from you,and it worked a treat. 

Some of the instruments I get for repair have very odd scale lengths, especially the handmade ones, and your fret slotter can cope with any of them.

Today, I am cutting a fingerboard for a headless bass. I have made a number of mandolins lately, to a 13.5 inch scale.

By using 14 inch scale and an adjustable bridge I have put more tension into the strings, and more bridge pressure, which increased the volume by about 40% and the tone range beyond my expectations. The accuracy is amazing, even in the higher frets, which, for a handmade mandolin is just great, and this paves the way for a new range of instruments, such as mandola and bazouki, now made possible by your fret slotter, to offer at any scale length, different volume, and various ranges of tonal characteristics.

These additional products will boost my business,t hanks to your machine. In addition to mandolins where the accuracy is paramount, I have also made guitars, using my own design, and I can now offer two different scale lengths, 25 inch and 25.5 inch and, although they look the same, they sound and play differently, adding yet another product to my range without incurring the expense of starting from scratch and tooling up.

Many thanks for allowing me an insight to your design processes and for letting me test a relatively simple and inexpensive machine, which has opened new potential in the production of my handmade instruments and in the repair of some rather odd scale lengths.'
Barry Owen, Luthier, Wolverhampton, U.K.   www.barriosmusicalinstruments.com