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Hi all,

I am also posting this to the Guitar Building forum. I need to pull the frets from a classical fingerboard and am concerned to minimize potential damage. Do any of you builders/repairers have tips?

Many thanks,
Max

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Max Bishop
Brighton, Michigan

Use heat from a soldering iron and then pull with REAL fret pulling end cutter. The cutter has flush ground blades that presses the fretboard wood down while wedging up the fret. This minimizes chipping. Start the cutter at one end of the fret and work your way across the fretboard.

+1

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Alain Moisan
Former full time builder of Acoustics, Classicals and Flamencos.
(Now building just for fun!)

I'm about to do a fret job this week. I plan on taping the fretboard before pulling the frets to minimize any marking of the fretboard.

I Think that would make repairing any of the small chips that always seem to occur much harder to fix.

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

I didn't tape it, but I had very small chips. nothing that the fret won't cover. This is a Crafter guitar. I don't even know why he's dumping money into it for a re-fret. Those things are so cheap he could have bought a new one for a couple bucks more!

I didn't glue my frets in on my build. Is that necessary to do on a re-fret? If so will fish glue work?

I use fish glue now, works fine.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Instead of a soldering iron, I use an American Beauty resistance soldering station with tweezer electrodes. You pump current through the fret and the entire fret becomes the heating element. When I see little puffs of smoke from old glue or wood oils, the fret is ready to come out. The heat is very even and is much more so than with a regular soldering iron and there's less heating of wood that doesn't need the heat. I usually do every other fret, and then go back for a second pass to minimize any heat build-up in the fingerboard. The heat also softens the wood on either side of the slots, making fret removal really a clean operation.

Yep, and you can pick up the American Beauty stations on EBay or at an electronics surplus store, too, for a lot less than brand new retail. The AB is a lot more convenient to use, too, and you can spread the electrodes a lot farther than 3/4". Mine have paid for themselves many times over. Yeah, I picked up a couple of them, and also use them in electronics fab work as well.

The verb "pulling" can be problematic too.

If you look closely at your Stew-Mac or other fret nippers you will see that the inside face of the jaws is beveled. About ten years ago the Stew-Mac nippers had a steeper bevel and these days the other nippers that Stew-Mac sells with orange handles still have the steeper bevel.

Where I am going with this is that the notion of "pulling" frets is problematic in and of itself. Instead if you let the tool, the nippers work as intended as the jaws close and eventually reach the fret tang the face of the tool should remain flat on the board face next to the fret slot. If you guessed that the face of the tool can prevent chips you are correct. When used correctly to "lift" the fret, gradually, working the face down the fret just behind the soldering iron you will very rarely get chips. Where we get into problems is attempting to "pull" the fret out using the nippers as a puller and not just closing the jaws with the jaw face flat on the board face which keeps the chips, most of the time in place. I systematically work down the heated fret letting the closing of the tool lift the fret and never pull. By the time I get to the other end a very slight rocking and the fret falls out.

Some boards such as old ebony can be more chip prone though and when this is the case it's helpful to take your bottle of water and run a bead next to the fret on both sides you are going to heat. What the water does is soften the board so that instead of a chip happening and flying across the room.... chips may lift but they stay in place not unlike wet cardboard. This gives us the opportunity to take a pipette with thin ca, something to hold the chip in place such as a small screw driver, and glue that uppty sucker back in place before it gives any other wanna-be chips any ideas....

Being the ignoramus that I am about many things I wondered about the presence of water next to a fret that we are heating with a soldering iron. No problem so far and my hair is still not in a fro....

Anyway my entire long-winded point here.... is consider "lifting" frets with the tool as it was intended to be used instead of "pulling" frets and I'll bet that your results improve dramatically right away. That's my hope anyway.

And if you ever get a chance to get your hands on an older set of the Stew-Mac fret nippers grab em. They have a more radical bevel and work better for lifting frets. Current offerings still work but not as well and the little orange handled ones are my current favorite because they seem to get under the ends better and have a more radical bevel to "lift" pesky frets.

Hope to see you Max in a couple months at the open house!

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Slight thread drift:

Don't forget that tens of thousands of Fender necks during the 1970s up to '81 were fretted by basically inserting...essentially injecting...the frets from the side, and if you don't take them out by tapping them sideways, you're going to have a real mess on your hands. You can usually get them out using a punch or nail set and a hammer tapping carefully. Of course the lacquer on the fingerboard over the frets is a drag, too. Luckily this isn't an issue for classicals!

When you use the standard fret removal flush-ground nipper, you are, in effect, driving a wedge in from each side, pressing down on the fingerboard as you squeeze the handles and lift the fret. Pressing the tool against the fingerboard is a natural and good technique. But, that applies to the area where the jaws actually touch the wood, and as the fret rises, it's quite easy to pull chips in slow motion as you work your way across the fingerboard. Fret wire is kinda stiff, so it is actually raised for a fair distance beyond where the puller is working. That's where the heat becomes so useful - in the area where you can't press the wood as the fret comes out.

For really difficult situations, I have a second end nipper (the upper one in the photo) with blunted jaws so I can take a "second bite" under the fret, maintaing pressure on the board as I lift the fret higher:



As a matter of practice, though, I rely on the heat to sear the walls of the fret slot - that's what really works.

I don't know of anybody who actually grabs the fret and yanks it out, but that would certainly be a way to maximize fingerboard damage!

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Cheers,

Frank Ford

FRETS.COM
HomeShopTech
FRETS.NET

That has been my experience. The tape actually pulled chips up. Especially true with old ebony. Next time I may just try sliding a piece of paper under. +1 on heat.

I think this is one of those things where too much thinking gets in the way. Heat the frets; ease them out with the right tool(s); wet the area on each side of each fret if necessary, and get on with it. Fret removal has come a long way since some of us started 50 years ago, and the collective knowledge is now pretty solid on how to do it. There is probably not going to be a better way to do this than you've seen here.

OH...forget the tape idea...it'll just make a mess.

Taping the board between frets on the fret mill end of the job is not a bad way to go, though. That way you separate what you're doing to the fret tops from what you've done to the fingerboard surface. You can even take the neck to a metal buffing wheel without messing with the fingerboard surface if you're after that mirror-like shine. I usually don't bother with that, though, instead I hit the fret tops with some 6,000 grit MicroMesh for the final polish.

No kidding - it has been a while, pal!

Overheard repair customer yesterday talking to one of the other repair guys - he said he'd originally been talking to the "elderly gentleman" over there about his guitar. Jeez - he meant ME.

And a few years ago a Stanford student came in and introduced himself - he said, "It's an honor to meet you - my grandfather bought his first guitar from you."

Thanks, kid. . .

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Cheers,

Frank Ford

FRETS.COM
HomeShopTech
FRETS.NET

Careful there, Filippo! 75 is barely 4 1/2 years away for at least one of us...

Even though Rick and Frank between them has a century of Lutherie experience my belief is that one is not old until this happens to them....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zdDfQrPi5Q

Attribution: IIRC Rod True was the first one to post this video on the OLF and I'm still laughing from it....

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Ann Arbor Guitars

That does cut a bit close to home:

So, I'm lying there shortly after having my chest stitched back together, with a nurse and orderly helping me to sit up. Nurse says, "Now don't use your arms, but just slide over to the edge of the bed and we'll get you over to the bathroom." She forgot to mention that, wearing the typical gown, I'd be stretching the nether part of my anatomy and getting a nice surprise. Once that ordeal was over, I was able to dunk 'em in the commode for a second "cooling" surprise. . .

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Cheers,

Frank Ford

FRETS.COM
HomeShopTech
FRETS.NET

If I had known that it would hit a bit close to home.... I would have never posted it Frank - my sincere apologies....

There is no humility in a hospital and the last time that I was in hospital with a kidney stone the place caught on fire and every patient was evacuated but me.... Must have been my breath.... I was walking around in the halls with my arse hanging out one of those gowns that you speak of pushing my IV pole and encountered two firemen.... They asked me what I was doing there and I asked them if they had seen my nurse.... She left me, abandoned me, was going to let me burn up I tell ya.....

Can you blame her?

Here is wishing you a speedy recovery Frank!!!!

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Hey, no sweat, pal - that was 2.6 years ago now. Wow, that must have been an experience with the hospital fire!

I have a new definition about old age. It's when you're standing around talking about your health with your friends, and everybody's really interested in the conversation.

Some of us were doing that in the shop the other day, and one of the younger instructors walked by saying, "Ah, the old organ recital. . ."

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Cheers,

Frank Ford

FRETS.COM
HomeShopTech
FRETS.NET

I am not sure if these are overkill but they seemed topical : http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Fretting_su ... ppers.html

Frank my definition of Old Age includes a line from the film "Bucket List..."

Never trust a fart.......

GXS we recently bought the chip stoppers and did not get on with them very well.... It's a novel idea but again if you keep the face of the nippers flush with the board, maybe use some water too along with heating the fret, and work progressively down the fret never pulling but using the tool to lift the fret with the wedge action of the jaws it's still the best results that I ever get.

By the way the chip stoppers benefit from the same technique in that instead of the nipper face in contact with the board the nipper face if done correctly is in contact with the chip stopper which is in contact with the board.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Once you try the resistance heating trick...whether it's from the 50 yard line (American Beauty) or cheap seats (Weller soldering gun with the big transformer in it)...you'll never go back to a soldering iron. There's nothing quite like getting the whole fret hot at once and having that heat be so perfectly localized in the fret itself. We don't need chip stoppers; we don't need two pairs of end nippers; and we don't have chipping problems. These days most of our fret pulling is when someone wants one of our fretted basses converted to fretless where we inlay white plastic lines into the old fret slots. There is no hiding chip outs when we do this; sure we can fill with superglue and sawdust, but it's hardly ever a real issue.

And I wouldn't even consider trying to get a fret out without heat at all. That is so fraught with peril and just too, too 20th Century!

Rick I completely agree regarding heat but prefer to localize the heat or at least have some control over what part of the fret gets very hot because of bindings.... It's not difficult to smoke the bindings especially on older instruments that have nitro cellulose bindings... So I avoid the ends or am very careful around the ends not wishing to smoke the bindings.

Now if you wanna talk about smoking the drapes I'm all ears.... And.... never mind.... I forgot what I wanted to say....

We have several old Wellers with the massive transformer and modify the tips with a small, round file to include a hollow like a fret crowning file so they don't slip off the frets. I may try your method but not on something vintage with nitro bindings. Has this, burning bindings been an issue for you at all?

And what about those stinkin Gibson nibs..... eh...

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Ann Arbor Guitars