Official Luthiers Forum!

I just finished fretting an acoustic nylon folk guitar with a 14 ft radius . Some of the frets are high , bowed etc. This is an older fretwire that seems soft and does not have any barbs. the tang is 1.5 mm deep and about .021 thickness. I would also like to use this fretwire ( sorry no photos0 to refret an old harmony archtop, rebuilt with an osage orange fingerboard. My question is , what techniques do you use for bending the fretwire to the correct radii. I have been using a 12 oz plastic hammer . I have seen fret bending tools on e - bay . Your suggestions and opinions would be appreciated

I just make one convex and one concave hardwood block with the appropriate radius. Then I cut a slot for the tang in the convex block, place the fret in the slot and squeeze the blocks together. Simple, but it works for me

Soft and no barbs, sounds like a receipe for difficult installation and early wear.
Good fretwire is cheap, using this seems like false economy.

I just bend it by hand with the tang pressing into my thumbs and use all fingers to bend. Seems to work well for me and I get a nice smooth bend with a couple passes. I bend the whole strip before cutting.
I over bend it slightly so the ends of the fret touch the fingerboard and the middle is a few thousandths high

The old bar fret material came with no barbs. Installers would sometimes hammer a bunch of V shaped dents into the tang side of the bar every half inch or so. With a hammer kind of like a rock hound hammer. The V's would spread out a little and act as barbs to hold the fret in the wood.
Give that a try or buy some tanged fret wire.

thanks everyone for the input.