Official Luthiers Forum!

Thanks in advance for guiding this wayward guitar hack.

I'm at the tail end of building my second guitar (steel string). Since my first guitar was a classical, I'd never had to radius a neck before. I picked up one of those stew-mac radius blocks and thought I was in the clear. I radiused the neck and moved forward with installing all the frets. (note, after radiusing the neck, I never checked to see if the neck was still level.)

Fast forward to yesterday. The neck and body have been joined together, and the guitar is 99% finished. All that was left was some fretwork and a nut and saddle. That finish line seemed so close..

Things went poorly as soon as I put the straight edge on top of the installed frets. Everything was flat and true, except the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th frets seemed to just fall away from the straight edge (back bowed). This wasn't a happy sight. Given the narrowness of the neck up at the first few frets, I likely sanded off more than I should have during radiusing. I moved forward with fret leveling, hoping I could get everything all leveled out despite the back bow.

I probably sanded off more fret than I should have (and certainly more than I wanted to) but it wasn't enough. When I use a fret rocker, the 2nd through 5th frets all rock. It isn't a big rock, but I get clicky noises on each one.

So now the question. Should I:

1. Admit defeat now, remove all of my (now very pretty and shiny) frets, re-sand the fretboard so that it's radiused properly and straight the whole way down the neck, then start the fretting process all over again; or

2. Keep on moving forward and hope that a slightly higher action will resolve any future buzzing problems.

Given that I've got clicking on 4 frets in a row, I'm 99.9% sure that I just need to bite the bullet and do option 1, but that finish line was so close...

Got truss rod? Probably won't do enough for you but worth a try. Don't make it completely loose.
Refret, BUT you will need a slight backbow...take a look at the Stew-Mac neck jig...then make one. You don't need all the fancy do-dah's, just a jig to hold the box and neck strung up to pitch and some blocks to hold the neck up after you remove the strings. You can get it right with a good straight edge. Remove strings and sand neck flat (the long way) and refret. Restring and put back in your jig to level frets or get the gizmo that levels frets while strung up (just a U shaped aluminum channel).

Theres a fine balance here and perfect is the enemy of done. But - unplayable will make you very unhappy.

I didnt level my fretboard carefully till #3 and yes - my work levelling and crowning took a whole lot longer because of it.

We are talking only 0.001"-0.005" to make frets click on a rocker.... Certainly enough for some bad buzzes.

The problems you are having now are due to how you support the neck and where you hold your sanding beam. Its not that you are supporting the neck wrong - its that you will always sand deeper over the hard support. Same for the sanding block... The block will sand harder directly under your hand than farther away from your hand. This is why Haans is telling you about the neck support jig.

The low cost solution is to check candling with a straight edge often and move your supports and hand pressure as needed to sand more where its high.

Most likely you had a support right under the first couple frets - and so it took off more material there.

Now.. On to the unlevel frets. Its the same thing... Hand pressure and support. I think I would try to get them right - even if you are going to pull them and redo them. You need the practice and here's a golden opportunity.

Sounds like there's a good chance that your fret slots are a little narrow, so when fret wire is installed a wedge action takes place causing a back bow. Yes refret, either enlarge the slots or get a fret wire tang file -- either can be used to provide a better fit and prevent the back bow. My hope is that you are not using a radius sanding block on the frets for leveling, that should be done with a perfectly flat block, some use a large file.

_________________
Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

You will need to pursue option 1.

The longer the radius block you have the better, even if it means buying a new one...

Option 1 it is! Thanks for your responses. Before I started ripping out frets I wanted to make sure I was going down the right path.

I really appreciate the help

Fret nippers are engineered with beveled jaws so that you when you close the jaws under the fret you wish to "remove" the bevels gently lift the fret while at the same time the out side jaw's face continue to press down on the fret board. The reason why people chip boards when "pulling" or "ripping" out frets is that they don't let the tool do the work. I nearly never pull on the nippers, I just trace the fret length with the jaws firmly in contact with the board and very rarely get any chips.

People can get by with short leveling beams, radius blocks, thinking that the fret rocker is any more than a very localized spot check. But if the instrument is going to be played for say finger style or better yet by a shredder accuracy and a well thought out methodology is pretty much required or you will be chasing your tail with a buzzy fret plane.

Decent fret work also includes imparting more relief on the bass since and less on the treble side.

There is also the idea of a compound radius board which IME is actually easier to create and offers the benefits of potentially lower action.

Lastly for now I'm not keen to ever fret a neck or board off the guitar. Stuff happens, wood moves, stresses are induced and unless you shape your board after the neck has been installed on the guitar AND treat the fret plane as the strings see it, as a whole fretwork will never be very good.

And I know all too well that there are notable Luthiers who fret the neck or board off the instrument and even call it good. It often is good enough for a bluegrass axe with mediums and higher action. But for the shredder crowd of even finger style players they are not going to get uber low, perfect action with no rattles unless the fret plane is created will a systematic approach.

I picked up on something else that you said. When I was a new builder I would see installing the neck and having the finish buffed out as VERY nearly done..... All that is left is throwing on a nut, saddle, beating some frets into submission and calling it a day. Man was I wrong. Once I actually had my work evaluated by a pro I needed lots more to learn.

Final set-up when done very well by even a pro can take a full day and a half or more. This is with someone who knows what they're doing as well.

Most of all though our friend Rick Turner who was Jerry Garcia's Luthier and built guitars for Fleetwood Mac, designed pups and created a killer line of basses once told me that I'm not sh*t unless I learn the repair side of the trade. I didn't like Rick much back then but I listened to him and heard.... him anyway. It changed my life and I did go on to learn repair and more importantly that set-up is perhaps the VERY most important thing Luthiers need to master.

Rick used to say if we were not skilled in repair and set-up we were simply making GLOs, "guitar like objects...."

Rick was right, glad I listened and even more glad that Rick took the time to honestly share with us all here regardless of the flack he sometimes took for the delivery.

Going forward get some leveling beams long enough to do the the 1st through the 12 and one short enough to do the 12th through the last. An OLFer, Murray sells them on his eBay site Technofret. Learn to shape the board into a compound radius and mill in relief where you want it PRIOR to any fretting. Learn to make the fret fit without inducing much in the way of back bow unless you want it as with compression fretting for pre-truss-rod-days Martins. Learn to press frets or hammer but do so consistently. Don't over bevel the ends, we hand builders are supposed to be above the cheap- arse f*ctory practices such as over beveling to avoid skillfully shaping fret ends.

When we fret really well the fret dressing required at the end of the process is very, very minimal.

If you ever have a client, friend, or family member who wants low action you will have already built the guitar to be capable of being set-up that way.

Other benefits of learning to fret well is that most people never even notice that energy is lost and tone as well because some of their frets are loose but not visually noticeably so.

Dan Earlewine has a great book from Stew-Mac on fretting, he's an expert and visits us from time to time.

Good luck and if I can ever help you just shoot me a PM.

AND.... Jason thank you very very much for helping Dave and I out with a review. We really appreciate you!

A big thanks to everyone who helped out on this little misadventure.

I pulled the frets yesterday, took my time and slowly wiggled them out. There was some minor chipping, and a couple bigger chips (swirly short grained mesquite doesn't like to hold together).

A little super glue later and it was time to sand! It took a little while, sanding slowly and double checking my work, but we're dead flat from the first fret up until about the 19th. There's a bit of drop off on 20 and 21, but this guitar doesn't have a cutaway so I'm not too worried about the last couple frets.

On to the next question

When I used superglue to fill in some chips, some of the glue made it into a few of the slots. I've been able to take out my saw and clean the fret slots, but is there a way to make the fret slot deeper without taking the binding off? I should still have plenty of depth in the slots, but I had to sand a fair amount down and want to have a backup plan if the slots need to go a little deeper.

Thanks again!

An #5 XActo blade can be ground into a hook shape to make a good fret slot cleaner but not the greatest tool to make the whole slot deeper on a bound board. For that StewMac makes a couple of useful little saws. Take a look at them, you could probably make something out of one of the small hobby saws using a Dremel cut-off tool.

http://www.stewmac.com/Luthier_Tools/Types_of_Tools/Saws/Japanese_Fret_Slot_Cleaning_Saw.html

Another saw. Also shows a fret-slot cleaning tool that is similar to what I made using a #5 XActo blade.
http://www.stewmac.com/Luthier_Tools/Types_of_Tools/Saws/Refret_Saw_and_Fret_Slot_Cleaning_Tool_Set.html

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Another possibility would be an oscillating tool with a blade ground to the proper width. It's surprising how many uses those things have.

https://www.gluedtomusic.com/en-gb/products/134/
English website but available in US
Has teeth pointing both directions, cut in from the sides to avoid break-out.

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Don Teeter (master repair person) used a dental burr in a Dremel mounted in a router base to clean fret slots --- that's how I would do it too.

_________________
Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Stew Mac tapered dremel bits...