Official Luthiers Forum!

Hey there guys! This is my first post so forgive my ignorance if I show any.

Do you guys know of supplier for tangless fretwire? I've done a little searching for it with no results, but lots of ideas for projects using it are coming up.

A little about me: I'm no luthier, but I am a composer and guitarist who is very interested in microtonal music. What I want to do is basicly glue some tangless frets and glue them inbetween the regular frets, so that I will have a guitar in quarter tones. The reason I want the tangless frets is that, it just seems more realistic for someone with my wood working skills/budget. Plus I heard that that's how parker makes the parker fly guitars.

I'm a little worried about buzzing though.

If the tangless fret wire isn't an option, I'm also open to the idea of doing sitar style tie on frets.

What do you guys think?

Interesting idea! I am not aware of any commercial tangless frets (except old-style bar frets, which will not work for your scheme).

Many of us remove some of the tang at the ends for bound fretboards. You could buy regular fret wire and remove the tang with a file or nipper. I am not sure that a fret will stay put just glued on a fretboard without any tang.

Another idea is to saw kerfs in your existing fretboard where you want frets and install in the usual fashion.

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

I heard of an experimental classical years ago that had six slots the long way on the fret board. Some kind of device was made that held short frets to slide into any position you wanted. Don't know anymore on that one.

Another one had replaceable fingerboards that could be fretted for different locations. This was supposedly useful to play in keys where the even tempered tuning was especially not appropriate. I think Richard Brune made this one.

As far as learning it to do it the traditional way - I'm kinda scared to do that since there is a lot of special tools/woodworking involved in that - I suck at wood working.

Anyone tried tie on frets, sitar style?

You could try getting a local Luthier to do it. Cutting slots and fretting on an already fretted fingerboard might involve removing the existing one first.
Tie-on frets no idea personally but found a site with it. Have a look at http://www.sitar.co.za/pdf/Sitar_Making_In_India.pdf and/or google "sitar making" but you may experiance problems levelling frets and with your hand fouling the ends.
Sorry I couldn't be of more help. You could contact Parker maybe, if they still exist.
If you can get tangless frets, or cut off & file the tangs it may be possible to CA or epoxy them to a well cleaned fretboard (Acetone?) if you could position them correctly. You could try eyeballing it, and making spacers from adjacent frets from material which didn't stick to the CA for example.
Good luck, nice to see someone doing something different.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Hey Steve, or anyone else who knows,

Where can I get some bar frets?

And as for tangless frets, those are aka finish nails to dulcimer makers

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Walter Lay
"It's taken me so long, but now that I know
I can see. All that I do or say, is all I ever will be"
- Billy Joe Shaver

Well, I have no personal experience with the stuff, but apparently Martin used to provide it to authorized Martin repair persons. I don't know if this is still the case.

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"Building guitars looks hard, but it's actually much harder than it looks." Tom Buck

This is not as easy a job as it might appear (with glue on or tied on extra frets)
To be playable,the height of the new frets will have to match the existing and be leveled with them. No chance of doing that with tie on frets.
Bite the bullet, get the fretboard slotted, tang frets installed, leveled and dressed.

I apreciate your work ethic!

I know a guy who specializes in these Jobs (experimental instruments) lives right in town too. Unfortunatley he's secretive, and expensive.

I really don't have the money to pay some one to do it, and I would gladly do it myself but I'm really bad with woodshop stuff. I have zero tools as of now, and the fretting Job seems to be the one that takes the most specialized stuff. I'm able to live with a little Buzzing if the frets don't match up perfectley - although I was thinking it would be easy enough to just grind the existing frets down to the level of the new ones or vice versa.

Of course I have no idea what I'm talking about though. Last I checked fretting was a very involved process....

Maybe I could just order a slotted neck from someone and do the final fretting step myself... hrms....

If it were me, I'd probably try making / buying a new fretboard slotted to the scale length and tonal distribution (is that the right word?) you're looking for.

If getting the old fretboard off and gluing on the new one is daunting, I'd go for the slotting the existing fretboard option. Installing, leveling and setting up the frets is not super easy, but it's certainly doable and there are lots of resources available on the process. You'd want to make a jig that made it really difficult to mess up and couldn't slip. Measure several times, and practice on scrap wood first. Oh and it probably goes without saying, only use a guitar you can easily throw away if you ruin it.

You might also contact Neil Haverstick
http://www.microstick.net/
He does microtonal stuff here in Denver and might have guidance for you. He now has instruments made for microntonal scales, but I bet he had to start out somehow. He may also suggest you consider other scales which would require a new fretboard. I don't think any of his music is quarter tone stuff.

Mike

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Mike Lindstrom

You are correct in that Parker guitars use a tangless fret. CA and epoxy does not hold them well at all and in fact the glue that is used to hold your rearview mirror in your car is the recommended glue for them. Having done repairs on Parkers for years , I can attest that that's been the only glue to work. I tried the others just to see them fail eventually. As far as the actual fret wire goes, I would contact Parker (Korg) and see if they can recommend a supplier for that type of fret wire. Their wire is stainless steel and a tough one to dress out when needing to level with other frets on the board. Hope this helps.


Fran

For future reference, anyone interested in bar frets, they are supplied in a variety of sizes by TJ Thompson
in West Concord, MA. Martin directs all inquiries to him.

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Bruce Herrmann
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."

Bar fret wire is also available from Fretted Strings in Davis California.
http://www.frettedstrings.com/shop/BarFretWire.html

Bob