Official Luthiers Forum!

So when do you fret and how do you fret?

I've been a hammerer since day one but I'm thinking about going to a press. (All the talk about Andy's great cauls!!!) If I do I'll probably rethink when I fret, before the finger board goes on the neck or after?

How do you like to do it?

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

I've never found that pressing frets works really any better than hammering them. Perhaps it's a personal thing.
My personal choice is to glue on the fretboard first, and then fret and do as much of the fretwork as can be done prior to spraying the finish, in other words, all the end dressing work.
Typically, fretting will curve your fretboard if done prior to gluing, and that makes it difficult to glue it to the neck.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

These days I tend to fret about everything all the time.

On a more serious tone...we fret after the neck and body are finished, after the neck is attached to the body. Third to last step. Not sure what right before penultimate is called.

Also hammer happy here. Works great once you learn the finesse.

penpenultimate, of course.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

On average when you dress your frets how many run high/low?

Hammering man here. Before gluing. When I level them later, after finish, they are almost perfect. (So far) .......Except when I used some LMI fret wire with a .024 tang and an LMI fret saw that makes a .023 kerf....... ( guess I didn't read the small print!)

Putting them in first does create a slight back curve, but I've never had any problem gluing it on the neck as it flattens out with gentle pressure.

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Pat

I like to fret on the guitar, so I can level the board after gluing it on. StewMac fret barber to get the barbs sized just right, and then hammer them in with hide glue.

My last one had two high frets when leveling. Hopefully with more experience I'll be able to get them all seated perfectly on a regular basis. It works better to tap from one end of the fret to the other, instead of both ends and then trying to squash down the middle, which forces barbs to scrape sideways in the slot. But with properly sized barbs, squashing down the middle usually works too, if I notice that it needs it before the glue dries. Sometimes pressing with a cam clamp and wood block works better than hammering for that.

Yep, I fret on the guitar so I can level the board after gluing. With the board perfectly flat, I use the fret barber so the frets tap in instead of hammering in. Checking my work as I go with a fret rocker, and then a final check with a machinists straight edge, I have been able to skip the final fret leveling and recrowning. This means the guitar starts with full height frets and nice factory crown on the fret wire. And no buzzes with lower than average action height. I don't bother with gluing the frets except for those over the guitar top - I use a looser slot fit for those so I add a little CA when I'm done for insurance,
Mike

We have a power slotting set up so slots are uniform from board to board and also always use wire from the same supplier. Like Martin we install frets to the FB before gluing it to the neck. In my opinion the slight bow on the extension is a plus not a minus --- I like that it compresses against the sound board. We take great care in making sure the neck fingerboard plane and the sound board extension area is a perfect 180 degrees --- a straight line, so any bow in the fb flattens right out.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

No Pressmen around yet? I am surprised.

I usually glue the fingerboard to the neck, level (mostly to the body joint) then hammer the frets in. I use a small straight edge checking each fret as I go, hammering here and there as needed. They come out pretty good but.....

On my last build a crack developed on the fingerboard extension I use a solid caul under the extension as I hammer but it happened anyway. The board had labor intensive custom inlays, and it was bound, so I really didn't want to abandon it. I did a fix.

Now I'm thinking a press for my next build, do the fretting before gluing it to the neck, and life will be good.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Ken,

Hammer or press?

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Well I've fretted a lot of guitars, so I can usually get them real darn close, only requiring a slight scuff with 800 grit on a sanding beam across, not along the frets til there is just a hint of a flat spot on top of all frets. Make sure the board is perfectly straight first. Huzzah for the two way rod!

Joe, we do have a press -- but I really like using a hammer, and yes a "hammer" -- I got validation from Rick Davis' comment that both he and his wife liked a substantial hammer rather than the nylon capped mallets commonly used. I cover the business end with a couple layers of easy to replace duct tape to prevent deep dents and scratches.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I have hammered and pressed both on and off the neck on new builds and repairs. Now that I have a set of Andy's fret cauls and have spent two very intense days with Dave and Hesh at Ann Arbor guitars learning how to do fretwork and setup, I am a Jaws II press em in after the neck is on the guitar kind of guy.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

We've only ever seen one pro able to pull off fretting the board off the guitar and having things be cool after final set-up. That was Mario P. by the way but his method AND jigs are very much a strict exercise in process control where he is religious with the intended method and does all the details.

Student instruments and even pro instruments that have been fretted with the board off the neck or the neck off the guitar usually show issues that can be severe enough to impact the possibilities for the set-up.

I know this is not what folks like to hear but the only way to have complete control over the fret plane, the shape of the board, fall-away, and be able to fret the instrument preserving the vast majority of fret height and material is to fret on the guitar with the neck and board installed. That's what we teach for the obvious reasons, it gives the Luthier complete control over the fret plane.

What we do see on guitars where the board was fretted off the neck is the dreaded body/14th fret hump, no fall-away, the leveling process taking lots of fret material to counter a roller coaster board, relief where we don't want or need it and not enough relief where we do want it......

Now this is something that I talk about a lot since we teach fretting and I also can remember my own reasons for fretting in the beginning off the finished guitar. Frankly I was terrified of working on a fully assembled, finished instrument. It scared the hell out of me... that I was going to scratch something..... What a wuss....

Once I got over this and was given some sage advice by one of the top Luthiers on the planet that cannot be repeated here if I want my password to work tomorrow things were fine...

Regarding hammering or pressing: With a methodology for pressing that permits one to press every fret in every location and precise tools and the knowledge to do compound radius boards pressing can be slightly more precise over hammering in terms of consistency. Is the difference measurable? Likely not if comparing experts with either tool. We hammer and press which ever makes sense for the specific situation.

I do prefer installing frets with a press greatly though. If you would like a reason why try gluing and clamping a fret in place with a stinkin hammer..... With a fret press the press is the clamp.

I have to add that if we want to compare apples and apples here the quality of the work, the fret work HAS to be considered as well. Anyone can hammer and anyone can press making understanding the objectives and the process key to using either tool.

Some of you build blue grass dr*ads with action high and mediums. Your fret planes can basically suck to some degree because your set-ups are not demanding. For finger style players and shredders where very low action is desirable the quality of the fret work can make or break the guitar AND the player experience.

Hey Joe!

The true benefits of pressing frets really can only be realized IME fretting on the guitar meaning with the board installed on the neck and the neck installed on the guitar. Short of this it's simply a preference thing for what tool one likes to use.

A Jaws II tool, jigs to use it all up and down the neck/body and the knowledge how to use it with an understanding of what a great neck and fret plane should look like is a very different matter over simply installing frets with a press or a hammer.

Fret work is very much an art and will benefit at times from some of the tightest tolerances found on any instrument.

Good info guys !!! I'm still not sure of the disadvantages of installing the frets on an unmounted board. Except for the slight bow imparted and of course not being able to level the board after it has been attached to the neck. It seems like those could be worked around. Maybe not!!!

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Moisture of adhesives, compression or flexing in clamping, minor incompatibilities in geometry of modular components, stress relief in final shaping - there are a plethora of opportunities, both slight and large, foreseeable and odd surprises, for minor upsets to occur or even compound along the way. I simply prefer to wait until all of these potentials for corruption have passed, and can be accounted and corrected for in final truing of the board before fretting.

I know of some builders who still prefer to fret the board before assembly, and do a final truing in leveling the frets once completed. I know of even fewer (maybe one or two) who have their process down so tight that no significant leveling is required after assembly, and can achieve excellent results. These folks have a common card up their sleeves though - a whole lot of experience and failures in refining their systems.

It can be done, but requires a significant investment in developing the cauls, the sequence, development of very tight consistency in every step of the procedure. Sure seems like it should be simple, but in practice it rarely is. It's an approach that can take at least dozens of builds to develop well, and dozens more before the time savings pay off over the alternative of leveling and fretting last.

So for small builders especially, who may not build dozens of guitars in their lifetime, I would suggest that fretting near last, after near all potential for disruptions are passed, is just the best and safest way to go.

As to hammering vs pressing, I'm firmly in the press camp. I still hammer frets occasionally, though to be entirely honest, I think that's probably a symptom of mid-life crisis, some primal drive to go back and do things like I used to in the old days. 99% of jobs though, I press, and the results are consistently smoother.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

I level the board and fret after the neck is shaped and attached to the guitar but before finishing. I use a double tenon neck so I can level and fret with the neck exactly as it will be when it goes out the door but then take it off to dress the sides, bevel and shape the ends.

I use jaws I to 10 and hammer the rest using lead shot bags for support and holding a smaller bag of shot inside while I do the extension. I use hide glue in the slots. Someday I may have to revisit Jaws II. Our previous relationship was stormy.

I do the final leveling after finish. Usually very little is needed and 600G on the long StewMac leveling bar typically does the trick.

For my particular neck attachment system I need some drop off on the extension and leveling the fretboard with the neck on the guitar after it is shaped makes it easier for me to accomplish that and not have to sand it into the frets later.

I'll actually fret to about 10 so the neck is about as stiff as it'll be and then support the headstock and put 5lbs of weight on each shoulder and see how the extension is behaving under tension. If there is not enough drop off I can still sand some in.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Sounds like a good procedure Terence. I particularly like the double tendon scheme. I think I need to explore it.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

In my method of building it's pretty much the last thing I do. I glue a flat fretboard to the neck then after finishing, bolt on the neck and glue the FB tongue down. Then I put what ever radius on the board I want and get the surface just right and it allows me to make minor adjustments to the neck angle, minor I tell ya. But in the past I have had these minor adjustments, or the lack there of, be major problems. So it's the last thing I do now and works well for me.

I also like to make the fret slots just a bit bigger then the recommended slot width so it only takes a few taps to hammer them in, pre bent, and I use fish glue to set them in good.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I used a caul/drill press on my current build for the first time.
The frets needed much less levelling than when I hammered them in.
I fret after the board is glued and the neck is shaped. This allows me to level the board befroe fretting.

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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

I would disagree with the Martin employee that necks will not be straighter with boards fretted off the neck. Instead it's a mass production technique and inferior in results to having the opportunity to level and shape the fret plane on the neck, on the guitar, and prior to fretting.

F*ctories do lots of things that are not desirable in the Luthier built guitar market with slotted bridge pins, overly beveled fret ends, Martin fretting off the guitar which they said is not an industry wide practice being some examples.

In Martin's defense they do have strict process control unlike most small builders and can pull it off to some degree also unlike most small builders.