Here’s the renewed fretless fingerboard.

The first step was to pull out the frets. This precise job was securely done by my colleague Frans Ieven. Many thanks to him !!!
Then I filled up the gaps with some plain veneer.

The new fretless surface, after sanding and some layers of danish oil, can be seen in front of Lord Buddha.
Then follows the mounting of the cikari strings.
Since the high pitched cikari string needs to be only half the overall length, a mini cikari pin is mounted on the fingerboard at the 12th fret, followed by a cikari ring slot. All are made of bone.

The low pitch cikari pin is located at the 2nd fret position. Both cikari strings are close to each other.

Finally, here’s this sarod-guitar’s strings & tuning chart:

1. steel wire 0.23mm / N°0 tuned to MA (= F# 3)
2. steel wire 0.28mm / N°2 tuned to SA (= C# 3)
3. bronze wire 0.37mm / N° 28 tuned to lower PA (= G# 2)
4. bronze wire 0.46mm / N° 26 tuned to lower SA (= C# 2)
5. steel wire 0.23mm / N° 0 tuned to SA (= C# 4)
6. steel wire 0.20mm / N° 00 tuned to higher SA (= C# 5)

Now I’m waiting for Nik to come and play this new instrument…