dofthesea wrote:
David Collins I'll probably be taking the Refret/setup class with you guys as well so it would be good find out before hand what system you might be teaching. Do you teach what you actually use with the polishing? Or is it different considering you and Hesh do quite a bit of volume of repairs?
Hi David - We are still trying to come up with a fall schedule for our classes and have you and Jim and Steve W. and possibly Jon on the waiting list. We hope to have firm dates for you this week. Thanks for your patience.
We teach two methods in our classes to polish frets.
Old school - using progressively finer abrasive papers sanding the frets sides and very lightly tops going as high as you wish to go. When I was doing repair work in my home town and building 12 instruments annually I used this old school method and was dreaming of having a Collins fret buffer that I learned on all the while....
Obviously the fret buffer is easier and WAY faster but old school works great too - it just takes longer and more abrasive paper.You end up with a super high shine, no scratches and then go to OOOO steel wool followed by Howard Feed-n-wax to condition the board.
By the way the Collin's Fret Buffer was born out of Dave studying the old school methods of G*bson here in Michigan. He observed that G*bson Kalamazoo era boards forensically showed evidence of having been taken to a wire wheel of some sort. Dave toured the old Parson's street facility along with a writer who was writing Kalamazoo Gals, John Thomas and they were keen to check out what's left of the old machinery that G*bson used back in the day. I don't know if they found the actual wire wheels used on some of the vintage, iconic G*bsons but I do know that one thing led to another and out of this the Collin's fret buffer was imagined, designed, and the first prototype was built. Dave nailed this the first time and we use his first and original fret buffer every day. Nod to G*bson here because that's how it should be done, attribution to the fine folks who came before us.
The Collins Fret Buffer automates the old school method and uses 3M abrasive wheels on an arbor. It's also a nod to the past but with modern composite materials from 3M. There are four grits with the last two being polishers for the most part. We often follow-up with this method as well with OOOO steel wool and then Howard Feed-n-wax.
Either method works well.
For old school where you start in terms of 220, 320 depends on your tools, do your files leave scratches, chatter, etc. but we all finish at the same goal and place, scratchless, super polished, glassy smooth frets.
Some of our students will continue to use the old school method which can go all the way to 1500 grit if you want and some build a Collins Fret buffer. We teach you both methods so that you can hit the ground running so-to-speak after the class and have something to work toward if the volume of your work and your own personal appreciation for innovative Lutherie approaches and tools motivates you toward building your own Collins fret buffer.
especially when one is a Felix Unger sort and known to shake lots of client's germ incrusted hands though the course of a day...
![[:Y:]](./images/smilies/smiley20.gif "Thumbs Up")