Official Luthiers Forum!

Might as well start a sub category that relates to my last question. I'm really getting tired of polishing my frets with a Dremel set up. Is a dremel really any good for anything other then creating frustration.... haha Any hoot I need to get a system together for polishing frets. Would like to have some kind of power application. Do you just use your guitar buffer from Stew mac and utilize another wheel for frets or something else?

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https://www.instagram.com/fostinoguitars/
https://www.facebook.com/PuraVidaUkuleles/

I put 8" buffing wheels on an old grinder.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

What's your current procedure?

I use 3M Polishing Papers Green-Gray-Blue then use a Dremel with rouge.


David Collins at Ann Arbor Guitars uses some fairly expensive 3M wheels on buffing arbors that produce great results quickly, but probably not practical for most of us who don't make a living at this
viewtopic.php?f=10102&t=14758&hilit=wheels

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

How often do you have to polish frets? We use an extremely fast and effective system, but it ain't cheap, and it takes up some space.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

4" buffing wheel that is attached to a shank that I chuck into my 3/8" inch reversible hand drill. Soft metal polishing compound.
Works very well.
Always make sure the wheel is rotating off the edge of the finger board, never into the edge. This is why the drill is reversible.
Dave

I will be doing about8-10 instruments a year between Acoustic/electric guitar and Ukuleles. So I don't mind spending on something that is fast and efficient. David Collins if you could please explain what you have it would be appreciated.

Now Ive been using sandpaper and Dremel and i'm totally over the dremel method for Fret polishing.

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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?

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https://www.facebook.com/PuraVidaUkuleles/

Remembered Dave posted this - might save him a few minutes of his valuable weekend.
http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14758

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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.

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.

like Hesh I don't use power tools
I use a fret protector and a cork pad
after recrowning with a diamond file I use
600 800 1200 1500 0000 steel wool
they get nice and shiny and I can do a whole re crown and buff in about 25 min or less.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

We do a lot of fretwork, so a corner-of-table mounted low speed grinder with 8" very firm cloth wheels and fine/super-fine Menzerna compounds handles the final polish with little fuss. For someone doing a few guitars a year, substituting a manual polish sounds more reasonable. Prior to polish, the usual Erlewine approach described in his book and video (minus the shortcuts) is followed with some minor variation - level, crown with diamond or cant files (the cant file for mandolin and other narrow frets), and P400 through P1200 to get the frets ready for final polish.

Our grinder is one of the low speed Woodcraft models purchased on sale and exchanged under the satisfaction warranty once or twice to find a cool-running tool. At 7 years old, it runs as smoothly as a Baldor, so worth the effort to find a good one. Most of the time, we use just the same fine Menzerna compound used for buffing finishes for final polish.

I found it interesting that Mr. Hall mentioned fine steel wool, given his reproduction and vintage repair work. We use 0000 steel wool for reducing the buffed gloss and aging frets when we are doing partial refrets to match vintage fretwork. I am not certain whether this was the final step at Martin and Gibson in their fret dressing process in the old days, but it must be something similar, because the micro-scratches left by the steel wool work perfectly for this sort of subtle adjustment. Given the legendary attention to detail in the overseas Martin reproduction market, are there other methods that you use, Mr. Hall, to replicate the sort of fretwork seen on vintage instruments?

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- Beth Brower

Actually I do use power tools, the Collin's Fret buffer but I have done many, many times the old school, manual methods too.

Given a choice it's the Collin's fret buffer for me and here's why:

1) My average time to complete sanding and polishing with the old school method moving progressively though finer grits of paper - 20 minutes.... AND during Michigan winters my thumbs split open and crack.... Blood and guts Lutherie though colorful on video has it's down sides... 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...

2) My average time to complete sanding and polishing with the Collin's fret buffer - 2 minutes tops AND no split thumbs...

But again either method works and there are likely other ways too.

Regarding results of the two methods that I talked about they are virtually the same although I tend to find that I miss scratches with the manual, old school method more often than the fret buffer.

A related discussion beyond methods is what's the value curve look like. More specifically we go to great lengths to produce and provide scratchless, glassy, super smooth fret planes even shaping fret ends to all manner of refined, edge free shapes but when is the last time that anyone noticed?

Instead the vast majority of players in my experience notice that their instrument plays buzz/rattle free and some may notice the glassy feel but I have yet to have anyone comment beyond maybe a few on nicely shaped fret ends.

When fret ends are sharp that's a different mater and usually noticed. Folks also comment that the f*ctory bevel is too radical and too inset as they find their high e slipping off the fret with f*ctory fret work at times.

Not advocating lower standards, far from it, just commenting that many things that we talk about here and actually do and provide in the real world seem to be off the mark in terms of what's critical to quality for the vast majority of players. Go figure.... and it seems like a bit of a disconnect between what Luthiers typically do and provide and what client's value.

I've no where the experience of most of the guys posting in this thread so let that be my pre-cursor.

After leveling and crowning I usually polish from 320-800 with wet/dry paper. Then I use one of these

http://www.amazon.com/SE-CBM200B-White- ... B001BNZINE

chucked in my hand drill, running the buff off the edge of the frets. Just a bit of extra fine rouge is enough...

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"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

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Exactly what I do. I have a set of buffs for my SM buffer that is for nothing other than fret polishing. I tape off the board and after I crown my frets with a SM diamond fret file ( the 320 grit one) I go over the frets with maroon scotch-brite till they are a nice satin and any tool marks from the file are gone. Then I run them across the buffer with fine compound and they shine like mirrors. What used to take an hour by hand now takes minutes.

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Brian

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

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

Call me "old fashion" I still use Don Teeter's method shown here:
http://kennethmichaelguitars.com/fretdressing.html

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Just as I like to seat my frets by hand, I like to polish them that way, too.

The best method I've found so far is to squirt a shot of Windex on a sheet of Reynolds Cut-Rite Wax Paper. I've found that the brand is important as wax paper tends to vary. I buy mine in Target, but you can also order online. Doesn't seem to matter if you use the name brand or generic with the Windex.

I'll dab the side of the tip of my right thumb in the Windex, apply mild pressure, and buff it out to a high gloss that way. You don't want too much Windex, just a drop. When you get too much, it eliminates the friction and completely wastes your time and energy. YMMV, but I've found that the skin on my thumb is best suited for the job. I can apply more pressure using my right index finger, but something about the texture of skin on my thumb yields the best results even though the job takes a few minutes longer.

I don't know if you're building for yourself or for others, but after those frets are polished to a high shine and the strings are one, I like being able to look at the instrument and know just how much of myself I really put into it.