Official Luthiers Forum!

A couple of things I've noticed about the fret nipper from StewMac:

I found that taking more than one cut to get the width of the undercut works much better to prevent twisting of the fret when cutting.
Two or three quick small cuts seem to work much better and give a nice clean flush cut requiring no filing. (It's all in the wrist)

Also, I noticed early on that the spring on the end of the plier was restricting the punch from fully entering the die when cutting to clear the slug. Wasn't able to adjust out this problem so removed the spring and cut the stud off flush. Seems to work fine.

Nelson

wow, thanks guys! it seems like some of you are getting varying results with the stew mac nippers. it would be kind of annoying to me to spend that money and then still have to do some filing to get things flushed up. i know not everyone is having that problem though. im wondering if it is operator error or if the tool has some inconsistencies? i think before i shell out the cash i will investigate some of the other advice given here. thanks again for the help!

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sweat the small stuff.

Yes there are certainly some inconsistencies in their tang nippers, but that's what you get with a cheap $45 tool. Yes, $45 is a cheap price for this tool. If you don't have $45 to spare, it may not seem that way, but it is. If you're on a tight budget, $45 can seem like a lot of money to spend on a pair of boots, but you're still getting a cheap pair of boots.

If I'm spending $45 on a tool like this, I would expect to find tolerances of ±.001"-.002", and be happy with it. If I want tolerances of .0005", There's no way I would expect to find one for $45. I'd be thinking more in the range of $150 or so, at least. Want to shoot for a .0001" tolerance cut, I think you'd be lucky to find someone who could make you one for $500. Quality machining is time consuming and expensive, plain and simple.

I've had or used a few tang nippers that cut pretty close to dead smooth, and others that haven't. Tolerances vary a thousandth or two in a cheap tool like this. StewMac does a lot to cut costs on their tools to make them affordable, and that's the way it goes. They could make them more consistent, but there's no way they would be able to sell them for $45.

Yes, I've always planned on a quick swipe of the file to clean up the bottom of the bead with any nippers I've used. That's life, seems what I'd expect for the price, and doesn't surprise me or disappoint me at all.

It's easy to be be conditioned to a false sense of fair pricing with all the cheap import average everyday tools we've become accustomed to. Good quality tools for specialty trades take a lot more work to tighten the tolerances, and are not cheap. I'm looking at getting a new set of flush cut end nippers right now to last me a lifetime - there are a number of more professional grade ones out there than what we see at hardware stores, but they start more around the $100-$150 range, and go up quite a bit from there. You get what you pay for.

If StewMac made a $200 set of tang nippers and they still didn't cut an acceptably smooth face, then I might complain. If they worked well though, I would buy them in a heartbeat and consider it a very fair price.

I know it's tough to put it in this perspective when you're budget is tight, but if you know what it actually takes to manufacture and control the tolerances in a tool like this, you'd probably be pleasantly surprised the price/quality ratio that StewMac manages to hold on things like this. No, it's not perfect, but you get what you pay for.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

hey david, thanks for breaking it down like that. this is my first guitar and like many builders ive made a lot of the jigs that im using. not only am i tired of building jigs at this point, it seems like much of fretwork requires a tool that im just not capable of building. there are some tools you can get away with spending less and then there are some that buying cheap just doesnt pay off. i get that. im only going to be building a few guitars a year for a while, at least thats my intention. i have zero fretting tools and of course a limited budget so im trying to get the necessary tools to do a quality job. if tang nippers arent necessary, then i might just have to wait. no biggie. i really appreciate the different places that people are coming from though and the way they go about their job. and of course you are a fretting guru and i respect what you have to say, so thanks again.

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sweat the small stuff.

Here is some info some may not have considered. When any tang nipper takes it cut. the blade first engages on a radius formed in the extrusion process. The natural reaction of the blade is to follow the radius to its tangent to the plane of the tang. There are many different fret wire manufactures. Each manufacturer has their own extrusion molds designed by tool and dye makers. Some have a larger radius joining the tang plane to the bottom of crown plane even with in the same general wire gauge. The larger this radius the more material will be left to file off.

You can blame this problem on the tang nipper or realize this is a function of mechanical geometry. If you use a straight blade to start a cut on a curved surface it will want to find the perpendicular tangent before the applied force starts the cut or at least till the force is enough to overcome the resitance of the material and any possible play in the plane of the cutting blade. Now of course we are speaking of very small radii but non the less this is a mechanical fact.

So the vast discrepancy in those that say they have to fill after nipping and those that say they don’t is very likely has more to do with wide variety of fret wire used than a issue with the nippers.

that totally makes sense michael.

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sweat the small stuff.

Michael, I noticed that. Not much you can do about it except take a conservative nip and file the rest (which is what I do). Also, as noted above,small nips are better to avoid bending the wire. Having said and done all off this, normal fret cutters would seem to do an adequate job (along with a little filing). But then, where would the fun in that be. TOOLS!!! And more of them!

Mike

Heath - thanks for taking my rant so calmly. The frustration I often have (and I'm sure StewMac and many others do as well) is the compromise suppliers have to meet between the professional and hobby markets. As someone who uses these tools every day to make a living, I would be more than happy to pay a fair price for a great tool that does an exceptional job, saves me time, and is durable. Makers of those tools will have a very limited market in comparison to ones that can sell a good tool that does an acceptable job for the casual builder or tinkerer for a more affordable price. The result in my opinion is that most tools are cheapened down to make the prices more palatable for the larger market, and it becomes hard to find professional grade tools. Hence, I end up making a lot of tools myself even though the end cost is more than it would probably be to buy a suitable pre-made one, were it available.

In the case of the tang nippers, even though they are not perfect, they are good enough for now, and do save me time even though I still have to file the last bit most of the time. There is a learning curve to put pressure in the right places and nibble the right amount to get a cleaner cut, but it also varies with different bead sizes. I'll probably end up making a little grinder unit one of these days that I can just stick the end in to and get a clean removal, but it hasn't been a big priority yet.

All that said, specialty tang nippers are not a necessity. The are a time saver, a tool for efficiency. When you have dozens of other tools and parts you need to fit in your budget, I would not put these near the top unless you're doing a lot of fret jobs and worrying about "billable hours". As already described here, there are plenty of other ways to do the job.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Anyone else try this tool? It similar to the jig Brett mentioned and KiwiCraig's jig photo. My nippers stay in the drawer now, and my fret job time has been reduced.

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Tom Krebs

That look interesting!
How is the fret placed / positionned in it? Can you do more than one at a time?

Cool topic. I went to ebay after seeing the radio shack item and there's a guy selling them for $11.99 including shipping. 41 pair left.

I figure I'll try to mod it with my dremel

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Cables-To-Go-Go ... 7C294%3A50

Happy holidays,
Todd

Sorry, but the pic does not help me understand your aproach.

Mike

Perfect timing for this thread guys.
I was half way through dremelling the ends of a bound fret job yesterday in 38 degree ( C ) heat when I saw this thread.

Just a quick straight groove made with a hacksaw will mod the nibbler tool.

Easy as pie.
Cheers, AP

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I'll miss the system here
The bottom's low and the treble's clear
Ah but it don't pay to think too much on things you leave behind

To live's to fly ; low and high
So shake the dust off of your wings and the sleep out of your eye.

The fret is clamped upside down. The file rolls along the jig rollers that line-up with the fret bottom. Takes off the tang in a few strokes. It is made well, and works well. Nice tool. It's at LMI.

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Tom Krebs