Official Luthiers Forum!

Here is the latest Luthier Tips du Jour video - The topic is fret removal.
This video as well as all my other videos are available via my website http://www.obrienguitars.com/videos/, LMI's website or on Youtube.
Enjoy!

Cool! Thanks for sharing Robbie. The modified side cutters look like a nice tool to have.

I've always done it with the first method though the pullers I use are a lot smaller. The second method looks interesting but how would that not pull the fret up like the first one? Seems to me that the shape of the nipper is the same, that is to say that it's flush on the fretboard side and each blade ramped up or beveled on the puller side so that when you engage the fret the knife edges of the tool fit under the fret and as you squeeze the tool together the fret is pulled by ramping up the edge.

I could be wrong, but it looks like the front of the nippers, being gapped, support the wood ahead of the part of the jaws which is actually lifting the fret.

The tool works like a wedge. While the fret wire is forced up, the wood is held down. Notice how I even use my thumb to apply downward pressure on the tool.

I use (probably ) the same smaller nippers that jfmckenna alluded to ... the jaws are less than 1/2" wide.

With these nippers you could achieve the same result of holding the wood down ahead of the jaws by taking a 1/2" square steel bar, about 10" long and filing a groove in the end the width of the fret and about 1/16" deep. If you held this tightly down onto the fretboard just ahead of the nipper jaws, and moved it along as you squeeze the nippers, the wood on either side of the fret slot would be prevented from lifting ahead of the jaws, just like what happens with the modified dikes.

Heck, maybe a stick of hardwood like oak or ash with an end groove would achieve the same result ...

Excellent and informative, Robbie, as usual. Many thanks for this nice little video.