Here’s how our fret cutting tool works. A laser-cut acrylic template with fret position slots aligns with a 3mm pin. The fret slots are cut on a small rotary saw with a titanium coated circular saw blade with a cutting width of 0.5mm.

After posting Manufacturing about Thor’s Compound Radius Fretboard, I was pointed to an article by Mottola stating that compound radius fretboards are not worth the extra effort and that cylindrical fretboards and normal fret dressing techniques yield the same results. I went on to analyze this claim.

Thor’s fretboard has a compound radius, with a nut radius of 304 mm (12′′) and a 24th fret radius of 456 mm (18′′). Compound radius fretboards have a conical surface that allows for low action and no string buzz.

Manufacturing Thor Part 5: The Neck Duplicator​: How do you quickly produce repeatably precise necks without using a CNC? We made our own wood carving duplicator for just this purpose. It works like a charm. It enables us to copy a master pattern in amazing detail using a compact router on one side and a stylus on the other.

Part 4: The Nut​: OK, So… Your frets are metal. Your tuning machines are metal. Your bridge is metal. And your nut is… eh… plastic? Bone? Or some kind of synthetic material resembling bone? The nut we use for Thor is made of laser-cut stainless steel, buffed to perfection. It matches the sonic and mechanical properties of Thor’s stainless-steel frets.

Part 3: Manufacturing The Middle Section Previously, I wrote about the design of the Thor’s middle section. This time, we’ll look at how the middle section is

Part 2: Designing The Middle Section This post describes the design of Thor’s body’s middle section. The design incorporates both traditional and innovative design elements.

I promised to keep you all updated on Thor while we are producing the first batch. There’s just so much on my plate these days that