A Viper fretted violin from the Mark Woods collection will cost around $3K...and they will NOT sell me a fretted fingerboard alone. 

The cheapest luthier/guitar fretted instrument repair facility wanted $600 for 1 fretted fingerboard for my 5 string violin... and I had to send them a fingerboard! That's ridiculus.

In reflection & in consideration of that cost factor... and the incredible ease at playing with frets, I decided to have a 'go' at doing my own frets and perhaps it would turn into a profitable endeavor in the future.

I can fret fingerboards and sell them by themselves. The customer can take their violin to a luthier (shop) and have the fingerboards swapped out for about $10-$20 and have a fretted fingerboard instrument. I can do both 4 string and 5 string violins and violas. I haven't tried to fit a cello fingerboard on it but I'm pretty sure it will.

Here is a very good explanation on frets and dot placement on a violin from the man who invented the electric violin.

The dot placement explanation starts at 3:00 into the vid.

I'm not sure exactly in what way they would be like a guitar fret. They have to follow the multicurved surface of the violin fingerboard which is considerable more curved than a guitar. A violin fret will only be about .94mm max high and 1.35mm wide polished to a mirror surface as well and level with respect to the fingerboard curved surface. Guitar frets are made to played "behind" and not necessarily on "top of" whereas a violin can be played in between as well.

The woods violins use a small narrow gauge fret which I will use as well. initially made for banjo and mandolin fretboards. I've enclosed a screen print of the Stew-Mac frets I'll be using.

The major difference is the 330mm nut to bridge length which must be maintained on MY violin, because my fret distances will be dictated by that strung length. If I make a fretted fingerboard for a different violin, it will only be proper for that instrument and that strung length.

I have several acoustic violins with various string lengths between the nut & bridge so each (if I were to make one for them) would be a tiny bit different. Here's a chart for just a 1 mm longer strung length. Not much but it gets to be quite a bit by the 24th fret! (compared to the chart above for a 330mm length.

The dots are the next challenge as they need to be in a specific location for use as a reference in tone and note identification, and there's only so much space between frets so I opted for the smallest (side dots for guitars) pearl dots available, 4mm in dia which I will inlay as noted on the woods violins.

I managed to receive my Fret Saw a few days ago and have sanded down and shaped a piece of scrap maple to kind of simulate a fingerboard although it does NOT have the full 42mm radius at the big end. The taper is correct and this is all I was testing for at this time. I have laid out and cut all the necessary 24 frets that will be used and this saw cuts really clean and precise! I used the fretted fiddle applique to decide the fret locations but will use a pair of dial calipers to lay out the final frets on my upcoming 5 string fingerboard still to arrive.

I managed to match the fret locations perfectly and then decided to "burn" a sample fret AND dot to see if my craftsmanship was acceptable... Apparently it is, so now the wait for the 4 fingerboards I have on order commences.

Here's another picture of the finished product of one test fret and one test dot. It is a 2.8mm dia brad point bit used and a pair of tiny tweezers to hold the dot while pressing it into the inlay hole! Wow, need a pair of old person glasses to see these! I think on an ebony board the pearl dot will really rock this thing, but on the lighter maple wood, a black dot or abalone dot would work better for the contrasting color.

Well, that's all I can do for now, more to come. Oh, I had to make my own fret bender so I could roll the tighter radius of a violin, as the guitar fret benders are really mild radius compared to this stuff!

Thank you Toni, I'm excited and nervous as well. Soon...

Well I knew it would happen... I'm so impatient when a weekend approaches and I have no other projects to work on!

I took a piece of maple scrap that was thick enough and made a couple of fingerboards, to spec so to speak... and used one to do some practicing on. The saw worked perfectly, the fret bender worked perfectly and when I was finished with this little 3 hour "learning" hands on experience I feel a lot more confident about attacking a new fingerboard of ebony.

This a blank and a semi shaped result of trimming a little.

Grinding the underside relief.

All sanded and shaped. Ready to start cutting on.

Here's the fret bender in action.

 And the final result of one piece of fret wire to use as a test.

I don't think there's a pic of my 5 string in this thread that I'm putting this fretted fingerboard on so here it is for everyone to see.

Well, to answer your many questions...

I did not make this violin, I purchased it from Yinfente in China. They maintain several different seller accounts for guitars, violins, parts, supplies, etc. Here's one of their 5 string violins like mine. They don't have many of these for sale and the neck and peg area seems to be one of their original fabrications. It really caught my eye so I took a chancer and bought it several months ago and I'm very satisfied with their workmanship and quality off the parts and pieces. Beware of inferior copies.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-5-.....21020b0a2d

I think the pegs are something very interesting to say the least, very much like miniature fender guitar pegs. Ha.

As far as the fingerboard I made, I took measurements of the existing board... width narrow end is 28.9mm and big end is 44.8mm but this one is a little shorter than a "standard" fingerboard, only going as far a a decent amount past the last fret The remaining board isn't used so why have it there.

As to your last item of interest, seeing it in action... I currently have a fretted fiddle applique attached that 'simulates' frets so I could get an idea of what I needed and what it would feel like. It took a day to get used to but after now playing on it I find it second nature to use and slides, vibrato, etc are all the same as it was before fretting.