Side Marker Dot Jig - A No Brainer

[Allen]

This jig might be old hat to a lot of you, but it's been a well kept secret from me. So after knocking one up today and giving it a run, I'm sold on how easy it is to get accurate and consistent results.


This is just some aluminum angle stock that I've drilled 2 sets of holes. One for the single dots, and 2 for the 12th fret marker. I scribed a line so I can align the dot to the appropriate place on the fret board.


The fret board clamped to the jig


I just use a cordless drill with a bit of tape on the drill bit for a depth gauge while holding the jig like this.


Finished results.

I really like this over the other methods that I've tried, as getting the dot off even by a fraction of a millimeter looks totally crap. The whole process only took about 4 minutes including glueing in the dots. Much longer to write this tutorial.

Hope that it's useful to you.

[Kim]

Very schweet Allen, very simple yet effective.

Cheers

Kim

[Bob Connor]

Very neat Allen. I like it a lot.

Bob

[Taffy Evans]

Hi Allen I think thats a good one too, I'm drilling side dot holes tonight. I'm thinking that in time the aluminium hole might enlarge and not be so accurate. What I might do is to make a special centrepunch put it through the hole give a soft tap with a small hammer and drill out side of the jig. Just a thought. An adjustable jig for different scale lengths would be good.
Taff

[Allen]

The alloy was cheap "free" and there's heaps of room to drill new holes, so I don't mind drilling some new ones now and then when it's required. I could have got a piece of steel that would potentially last a lot longer, but in Cairns, that's just one more thing thats going to rust.

Still a lot less trouble than the way I was going about it before

[sebastiaan56]

Thanks Allen,

I have just as many problems as you allude to, the jig was a secret from me as well.

Sebastiaan