You can build a guitar with just a jigsaw. It will do everything you need to do, it just won't do it as well as a scroll saw or bandsaw. The biggest problem with a jigsaw is that the blade is only fixed at one end. It stays fairly perpendicular when cutting straight, but will get pretty crooked cutting curves, especially in thick materials. If you are going to use a jigsaw, cut well outside your lines and sand-in.
I make all my fretboards 12 inches, guitar or bass, fretted or fretless. I just like that, and also, it doesn't matter that much as long as you stay away from the extremes. 12-inches is a nice comfortable curve for chording on, and also doesn't require as much work and mess to carve as a smaller radius. I find it is a good compromise overall. I can make a 12-inch radius from flat pretty successfully with just a sanding block. StewMac's pre-radiused boards are 16-inches and are quick and easy to re-radius to 12. Although I made tooling for everything from 7 to 16, I don't use any of it. Luckily, I made extra tooling for 12 inches before I broke down the manufacturing plant.
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