Zona 35-380 Thick Dovetail Saw, 18 TPI, 020-Inch Kerf, Blade Length 8-Inch, Cut Depth 1-3/4-Inch, Silver

Using a miter jig I built for cutting fret slots, and this fret saw, I got perfectly straight cuts and a very consistent width that were perfect for my SteMac-bought pre-cut frets. For the price, a must-have for any aspiring luthier.

Great dovetail no complaints yet

Zona makes little saws that cut very finely. This one works very very well and it’s a joy to use. They’re made in the USA too.

This saw was so cheap it was worth trying. I use them to cut fret slots by hand, I have done 2 boards and think it has held up of but I worry it is starting to dull faster than I would like, we will see. IF it keeps working well I will up date this review

Works as expected not so good on hardwood seems to dull easily, takes a long time to get it.

This is a very well made fretting saw that I just used to refret a maple neck from The Fret Wire (the frets that came on it were total garbage). I did not cut the fret slots on the pictured fingerboard with it; however, I did deepen them slightly and used the saw to clear out the existing sawdust and whatever the material was that they used as end filler to hide the tangs. The saw width was perfect, it measured out at .024" on my calipers. After I was finished the StewMac #148 frets that I am using had a nice snug fit in the slots. Can't beat this saw for the money.

Big fan of Zona saws anyways, but the little set of razor saws I had previously lack the mass to absorb heat which meant you had to rather tediously tap them back into place if they started to curve. Unlike those this has enough steel to soak up heat effortlessly, and the teeth face the right direction so I didn't need to flip the blade around before rehandling it. The spine material was soft enough to drill through in a minute or so with a hand drill, but the blade... well, after maybe ten or fifteen minutes I had a dimple in the steel and realized I should have just used the hacksaw to cut a slot. Naturally I take no points off for the blade being too hard to drill through, though I admit I hoped the teeth were backwards because the existing hole is on the wrong end for my purposes. The teeth weren't perfect but I would have filed in a progressive "mountain > cliff > wave crest" sort of pattern anyways so it hardly matters. Though I'm sure they would have sufficed for someone less eager to start filing 18 teeth per inch? I also cut the spine back some, as I didn't feel like trying to drill out an extra inch and a half of space in the handle, and it would have ruined the shape anyways. I have no clue how the original handle is btw, I opened the package, pulled it off, and started sizing a precut handle I had done the night before, though I later went with a swoopier shape since I didn't need all the meat in the grip I had originally and I found a piece with prettier grain to work on. For some reason when I try to upload a photo it seems to disappear, and I can't tell why umatrix is doing that so here it is: https://i.imgur.com/myzhCay.jpg

Saw cuts well and is small enough for cutting slots for frets on a guitar neck.