New Fret Job – Is Gluing Necessary
Source: Fret Repair
New Fret Job – Is Gluing Necessary?
When frets are placed into the fretboard under factory conditions or in the shop of a luthier, they are installed with known factors such as proper fret channel slot widths, paired with proper fret tang gages, resulting in a perfect fret job.
When we re-fret an instrument we do not have that luxury. We really only know what the conditions are after fret removal. We can be faced with frets that were glued-in previously, a poor prior fret repair job, rotten or deteriorated fretboards an much more.
Therefore replacing frets and risking a dissatisfied customer, may mean a fret redo for you.
New Fret Job – Gluing The Frets:
Gluing the frets into place if a favorite technique for many guitar repair shops, and often it is the only option, outside of a full fretboard replacement.
If you remove the frets from a guitar and can get enough “grip” from the tangs of the new frets without the aid of glue, you can consider yourself fortunate. More often than not, the removal process involves fibers of fretboard being dislodged and the channel are a bit worn out from the process.
An option is to use a slightly wider gage tang with the new frets, and if you can do this, it is a very viable alternative, but there are consequences with this as well.
How You Know If Gluing Is Necessary:
You will usually know, by the time you have removed the frets, if you are facing gluing or not. You can even test drive a few frets into position with your selected fret material. If there is a fret end sticking up that will not behave, or you can have a fret on a arched fretboard that just won’t seat properly. These are just a few of the signals that you will have to glue all of the frets.
Another sure sign that you will have to glue the frets is if the previous job has glued-in frets. To do this the channels will have to be cleaned of all glue debris and this widens the channel excessively that the only alternative is to glue the frets.
Let’s face it. A fret job is not a simple repair and to risk the fact that frets may become dislodged, will give you a bad name, lost sales and lost repair time fixing the problem.
The Merits of Glued Frets:
The merits of a glue job for re-fretting make this a very good option for the repairman or the do-it-yourselfer.
First: With a glue job, you are going to clean out all of the fret channels, including any dried glue from other repairs, wood fragments and so on, almost starting with a clean slate.
Second: You will be making the fret channels conform to the exact depth and width needs of your new fret wire dimensions without the worry of frets lifting or being misaligned.
Third: The frets will all be placed in the channels very consistently without any worry whatsoever of later shifting or lifting.
Fourth: There is very little or no hammering involved with a glued-in fret job as the primary mechanical holding method consists of the glue bonding the fret to the wood, so risk of damage to the instrument is minimized.
Fifth: It is very easy to replace frets with my glue-in fret replacement method. So if you have a client who needs frequent fret replacement or you go through quite a few frets yourself, rest assured, you can re-fret the same instrument multiple times, with ease.
Tags: Fret Repair, guitar frets, Guitar Neck Repairs, how to glue in frets, replacing guitar frets
