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What's your favorite fretwire to use for classicals. The one I have been using from LMI seems soft and I have trouble installing it without denting it. Of course my fret installation skills are lousy anyway. I seem to have a habit of getting it in crooked, with it flush to the fingerboard on the nut side and a hair raised on the soundhole side. To me fretting is the most frustrating part of building

If your frets are consistently raised on one side, your fret slots may not be square to the board.
If they are square, a couple strokes with a small triangular file along the fret slot will help center them in the slot and account for any small irregularities at the tang crown junction.

I kike Stew-Macs #155.
not to wide,a shallow tang and enough height for leveling.

Mike

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Mike Collins

I use the Stew Mac #155 as well and for the same reasons. It also fits my saw kerf too.

I was using StewMac 155, but now favor Dunlop 6500 or Jescar FW55090. They are the same height, but the crown width is a bit wider on the 6500 Dunlop. I love the way the Dunlop wire seats on the fingerboard. It seems like a smoother transition than other wires I have used. The Jescar is closer to the StewMac, but a bit taller. Nice wire. Easy to work. Both are NS wires.

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Waddy

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Sound Clips of most of my guitars

My only two guitars thus far have been classicals. I used Stew-Mac #148 and used the Stem-Mac saw blade to cut my slots. I did use a small triangular file (as was mentioned above) to widened the slots slightly at the top which centered the wire in the slot, and had surprisingly little trouble getting the wire seated. Used a bit of Titebond on each one and a a stack of lead shot filled bags (my diving belt wasn't a total waste of money) for under the neck support when hammering. So far binding (bending to fit the side) has been the most frustrating part for me. Good luck.

Marty

That's surprising... I use the same wire and saw, but if I don't grind the barbs down some, they take a ridiculous amount of force to mash in, and sometimes won't fully seat at all. But I do bind all my fingerboards, so the slots can't flex open at all while installing them.

My last one was a joy to fret, after grinding the barbs with a dremel cutoff wheel. Just fill the slot with hide glue, give the fret a few taps, clean up the glue, and on to the next one.

Well, if you hate hammering Frets:



The fret in the background has been hammered in, correct fret and correct fret kerf. The fret in the foreground glued into a slightly wider slot, glued with Fish glue and clamped.
The fret overhang was then pulled up.

I didn't bind my fingerboards (don't know how, yet), but here is a picture of the fretboards on the 1st two guitars I just finished, with a picture of the hammer; I used the hard yellow plastic end, and it didn't flattend the frets. Hope it wasn't just beginner's luck.

Marty

Frets should tap in, not have to be hammered in. I like mine bent to start out as they seem easier to handle that way. That's why I buy it by the pound in a coil vs the straight pieces from StewMac. With a slot that is just wider than the tang, it's a tap on each end and taps in the center to flatten. Beating the frets will bend them every time. I use the plastic side of the hammer too, vs the brass side. I also use a bit of fish glue to lubricate the slot.

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Waddy

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Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I don't get it. I buy my boards from LMI, slotted. I don't know exactly which fret wire I've been using, since I got it from LMI a while ago, but it was listed for classical. I use a triangle file to gently break the edges on both sides of the slot. I use the plastic side of the hammer, as opposed to the brass side. I try not to hammer too hard, but when they don't go in I end up hammering harder. The last guitar I did that came out well, I filed the barbs quite a bit and did not glue, so now I'm concerned about the frets coming loose. I guess I will try either hide or fish glue on the next one.

Are you supporting the Fretboard/Neck well enough? You need something very solid behind it or something capable of absorbing the shock - which is why it's impossible to seat a fret over the upper bout without some sort of support.

Yes, I have the neck solidly supported directly under the fret I am working on. On the extension over the upper bout I am holding a bag of shot underneath. I am really wanting to try pressing them next time.

In an article in GAL, Brune mentioned that he wicks in super glue from the edges after fretting. That seems a bit easier than applying glue to the whole slot. I believe he said that it does not compromise the ability to remove the frets later.

In that case I don't know what is going wrong. If you could widen the slot slightly I would switch to Fish Glue, a bit of plywood and a G clamp. Cheap, simple and easy. Not a lot to dislike.

Fret tang widths, and barb widths vary--even from the same supplier. For instance: Stew Mac wires are all listed with the same tang width, but there's a good deal of variation between them. Generally, if you stick with the same wire, it will be pretty consistent. I like the Jescar fretwire because it has bigger barbs. It drives in solidly, and stays there. Jescar FW43080 is what I use most.

It's handy to have fret saws in various kerf widths--much easier than filing barbs. You can make up a batch of fret saws by super gluing pieces of band saw blade to a wooden backbone. Stone the sides of the teeth to create different kerfs. Part # 4051A13 here http://www.mcmaster.com/#band-saw-blades/=lb28yv works well. You can get four or five hand saws out of each band. Use these to enlarge the slots of an already slotted board.

Tapping the frets in dry, and super gluing from the ends works fine on unbound fingerboards such as most classicals. That's how I do it myself. Superglue releases easily with heat. Refrets are no problem. For better or worse, with no glue squeezing out, it's easier to measure any gap on one side of the wire such as you are encountering. Try hitting the top of the fret a glancing blow with the hammer face parallel to the fingerboard surface to rotate the fret. Try turning the fret wire end for end on the next fret. (Some fretwire tangs aren't perfectly square to the shoulders.)

I use a fret hammer with a steel face, and have no problems with denting the frets. The hammer face is highly polished, and I don't use that hammer for anything else. It takes a little practice to get the feel of hammer fretting. Tap evenly back and forth along the fret top, driving it in a little at a time. Too light tapping, and the fret pops back out next to where you've tapped. Too hard, and the fret takes a bend that will leave a gap.

Like Filippo, I prefer a slight radius on the fret wire, even for a flat board. When using straight wire I gently draw the tang side over the work bench edge (it wears a slight notch in the workbench) to bend the wire. After tapping the fret into the board I will use a wooden block between the hammer and fret to firmly seat the wire. The block should span the entire width of the fret. On radiused boards I will radius the face of the block to match. A softwood has less tendency to mar the board, and after it crushes down a bit seems to have a hard enough surface to seat the fret well.

Lots of good advice. I found an old receipt and see that I had ordered FW72 from LMI, which is a softer wire for nylon strings. It also has a longer tang, and I suppose it is possible that I didn't get all the dust out of the slots, although I did vacuum. I will definitely order the standard harder wire from now on. I also am probably hammering too hard. I will definitely try turning the wire around as well, if I have the same problem again. The wire does come coiled with a radius. I am going to practice a bit on an old unused board I have hanging around. Seems like pressing frets would be so much more reliable but, like all the other processes in guitar building, I'm sure I could run into problems with pressing too.
Thanks for all the great tips, Wendy