Official Luthiers Forum!

Lee Valley Hardware offers this Pax Fret Saw:

http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.a ... 63338&ap=1

Looks great HOWEVER ... it says it has a .021" kerf, which it claims accommodates standard medium-gauge fret wire. Of course everything else I read calls for .023. If i buy this Pax saw, is the natural wiggle on the .021 going to give me .023 anyway, or am I going to have to be bashing frets to smithereens trying to seat them?

If I buy this saw I can pick it up & not pay shipping or customs duty etc. Got hit for duty on my recent small StewMac order:( Not sure exactly what happened to this whole NAFTA thing, but that's another story.....

Thanks in advance for any advice on whether I should buy this saw or just go for a .023 one from a luthier supplier
Al

_________________
If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason. - Jack Handey

I like to use a saw that cuts a 0.025 to 0.027" kerf. This allows me to fully seat the fret without undue force. Sometimes overly tight slots refuse to allow the fret a full insertion. So I definitely would not recommend a saw that cuts a narrower slot.

Al-
If you are going to saw slots by hand, I don't think .002" is going to make a lot of difference. You can always swipe the fret tangs with a file or sanding stick to take a bit off if necessary. The fit will depend on your fretwire and the hardness of the fingerboard you are using.

If you own a tablesaw, I'd recommend skipping the hand-slotting idea and going straight to a circular fret-slotting blade- $43.50 from Shane at HighMountainTonewoods (and he's in Canada). You can make a jig and slotting template for the tablesaw pretty easily.

Cheers
John

Al-
I'd be very surprised if you paid much duty on the StewMac order, though duty is theoretically charged on non-USA produced goods. The PST+GST taxes and the $5 service charge from the Post Office are bad enough! (If you agreed to UPS and their $35 'brokerage fee', then you have learned the same sad lesson as the rest of us....)

Cheers
John

I am not sure of the kerf on mine, but that looks pretty much like the saw I use (LMI version). It works great.

_________________
Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Thanks for the responses, I do own a table saw so can look at that option as well...

I did look at LMI's saw as well - looks quite (but not exactly) similar but does state it's .023 instead of .021 - http://www.lmii.com/CartTwo/thirdproducts.asp?CategoryName=Fretting&NameProdHeader=Fret+Saw

All the standard wire/tools talk about .023, so I don't know where Pax & Lee Valley get their .021 idea from as standard. Maybe it'd be workable, but not much point in buying a new tool for a specific purpose if it doesn't really suit.

(i'll look at what i paid the postman for - he just said it was 'customs' - i didn't bother reading the fine print, just busted open the piggy bank .. maybe it was just the taxes). Whatever it was, $58 worth of stuff, plus $18 for shipping, plus $12 to the postman at the door, all of a sudden my already expensive items are now 1.5x more expensive again. Have to have a strategy on all this ordering stuff apparently.

_________________
If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason. - Jack Handey

Al-
You are correct about 'strategy'.
Well, we do have to pay taxes on stuff we buy locally, so that is 'a wash'.
$5 Post Office handling fee leaves $7 in taxes on $60 Cdn worth of stuff- sounds right?
Shipping cost is something to keep in mind always - $18 was probably the straight postage cost, so StewMac was pretty fair on that.
Unfortunately , one strategy on shipping is to buy lots of stuff every time- it gets expensive!
Finding Cdn sources for stuff at fair prices can be a challenge, but if you can, you can save quite a bit.

Cheers
John

Actually the Pax site (contrary to the LV site) says that this saw has a kerf of .022" approx. ... so I guess we're getting closer anyway

http://www.flinn-garlick-saws.co.uk/acatalog/Pax_Range.html

_________________
If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason. - Jack Handey

NAFTA has nothing to do with postal charges. And the custom charge seems to be a Canadian thing. I have shipped quite a few items to canada and have had some recipients ask if i could state that it was a gift on the custom forms. I guess you don't have to a pay a fee for gifts or it's a lower fee? I have never had to a pay any custom fees when purchasing from Canada myself which I have done a lot...Mike

The chances are that the LMI and the Pax are one and the same. I have the LMI and it cuts a clean slot of the correct kerf for the 'standard' wire that I use.. I'd prefer it to be shorter (I cut slots over the body) but it's obviously made with respect to the fretting jigs.

everytime i order from stewmac, or indeed anywhere outside the uk, if the item/s are worth £18 upwards, i have to pay duty at 18% or whatever. why cant everyone help us out and 'gift' our stuff to us. it aint rocket science. maybe its illegal? i dunno. . . anyroad up. i use a .53 kerf saw. i started with a .23 but couldn't get on w/ it. the .53 works a treat with a bit of crazy glue. and while we are here, whats the deal with slot accuracy. haven't humans been slotting fingerboards by hand forEVER? why all the anal obsession with machines and .001" tolerance? surely with a ruler and a good eye the ear can be decieved. please correct me if im way off here. i enjoy slotting fingerboards. it gives me real satisfaction. and i think that everyone would work/compensate differently giving each luthier truly his/her own sound and tuning nuances. no? western tuning is not truly 'in tune' anyway and strings bend when you play em, which means we don't stand a chance really.

Well we aren't really trying to deceive the eye or the ear, that's more to do with fret placement rather than finding the right saw kerf for a given fretwire. Too tight a kerf, given that you fret on the body and you are really in trouble. I've been there. Even if you fret before gluing the fretboard you are very likely to create a serious backbow. A kerf that is too wide leaves you with gluing in the frets. That's fine if you want to use that method but I just prefer to use the right saw for my fretwire. It's both simple and quick.
You are correct in saying that compensated fretted instruments are a fudge in terms of intonation but I still think it better to be accurate within that system as opposed to being inaccurate. Most of us have become accustomed to hearing the shortcomings of it and it therefore sounds 'right'. For a discerning few it will always sound off.
I'm afraid companies such as Stewmac simply can't 'gift' to get around duties. They would probably be shut down faster than one can fret a guitar.

Don't think so - they look pretty darn similar, but the Pax has an extra hole in it to hang it up apparently, and it has a real rosewood handle rather than the LMI rosewood-like handle, and the kicker, LMI has more teeth per inch (20 v. 16).

Apparently the Pax saws are handmade which could account for the small variance - Lee Valley apparently got their .021 measurement from actually measuring one of the saws as I found out, and Pax does give their .022 as 'approximate.' Fascinating I know

As for the 'duty,' John got it right - federal and provincial sales taxes, plus a $5 post office handling fee.

_________________
If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason. - Jack Handey

That's one of the reasons why I have 4 tops instead of 1 ageing in the basement - same cost to ship

_________________
If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason. - Jack Handey

Al, that 'wiggle' you mentioned is different from one saw to the next. A saw made for fretting is more likely to be right. I bought several Japanese style saws before I got one that makes the right slot and it isn't the one with the .023" blade.

I know of a guy who has fretted dozens of instruments with the LV saw. You will be fine.

My mistake. I should have said the saw is probably made by the same manufacturer. My LMI fretting saw clearly states 'Made in England' and I know of only two large(ish) commercial saw makers in the UK, Thomas Flynn (Pax) and Atkinson Walker. It doesn't look as though it's made by Atkinson Walker though.

Thanks for the tips everyone, guess there's really only one way to find out whether this LV Pax saw is going to be the be all & end all of fret slotting ...

_________________
If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason. - Jack Handey