Specialty Fret Repair Tools:
Pressing frets into place is a time-saving and accurate method widely used in guitar production. Our self-leveling steel fret press caul, fitted to our heavy-duty arbor press, brings this method to your shop. The arbor press is made of cast steel, with an adjustable steel pinion for firm pressure.
We recommend practicing with lesser-quality guitar necks to become accomplished at using the fret press. The technique will become easier with practice. As with any method of installing frets, skill and caution are advised. You can “start” the fret with a hammer, or you can leave the wire uncut and press the fret in completely. Don’t let the fret roll over onto its side while pressing it—this can leave an imprint in the fretboard.
There’s gotta be an easier way to trim the ends of the frets to fit over the neck bindings, right? Our friend Bill Collings (of Collings Guitars) had an idea that inspired us to produce this simple and precise tool. It’s become a repair shop favorite.
It does an outstanding job of undercutting fretwire to fit over neck bindings, speeding up fret jobs on bound necks, and helps save the lacquer finish at the edges of the fingerboard.
Just insert the wire to the desired depth in the guide notch, squeeze the handle, and the wire is quickly and cleanly undercut. No bending or crimping!
We’ve ground the shape of a fret tang into these special heavy-duty pliers, to help grip a fret when bending it to match the fretboard curve.
The jaws are smooth, with no serrated teeth to mar the wire, and the fret drops right into place.
This is a great alternative to the much more expensive fret bending machine show below. If you ever had to wrestle with placing a straight fret on a curved electric guitar fretboard, you can appreciate the usefulness of this tool!
This tool is just for pulling, not cutting, frets. Its special flush-ground 5/8″ jaws are small enough for a better bite.
It lets you “walk” the wire out of the slot, helps minimize wood chipping, and does a better job of pulling frets than wider cutters.
This is a great alternative if you do not wish to go through the process of buying a standard end nippers and rework the jaws as indicated in the essential tools section above. I have purchased this tool and use it as a supplement to my own specially ground and sized tools.
The Fret Buck was developed by the Taylor Guitar factory, as a shock absorber for installing frets on the portion of the fingerboard over the body of a round-hole acoustic guitar.
This heavy cast iron tool rests on the shoulders of the guitar and reaches through the soundhole to provide firm support beneath the fingerboard extension.
Those last few frets can safely be hammered into place — formerly a risky operation!
Our fretting experts compiled this kit of tools you’ll need for the fundamentals of fret work: installation, removal and dressing.
The Essential Fretting Tool Kit is a great way to learn fretting with a modest investment in tools, and will help prepare you for more specialized jobs and tools later as your skills develop.
The kit includes:
• Fret Cutter #0619
• Fretting Hammer – Hammer with plastic and brass faces #4895
• Fret Leveling Files – 6″ length #0862
• Double-edge Fret File – Medium/Wide #4491
• Fret End Dressing File #1175
• Fret Dressing Stick – Dressing Stick with 8 belts (2 of each grit) #1826
• Fret Rocker #3770
• Fret Work Step By Step #1371
FretBender:
If you bend 21 frets by hand, at a reasonable 45 seconds each, that’s 16 minutes. The FretBender will perfectly radius those frets, in three 24″ lengths, in just 16 SECONDS!
The sturdy FretBender is 7″ (177.80mm) tall and can be bolted to your workbench. The groove in its smooth-turning brass guide roller accepts large or small fretwire tang sizes.
The wire advances on two precision needle-bearing rollers, with cam adjustment for any required fretboard radius.
The FretBender is a super-tool that makes fretting faster, more precise, and more efficient.
Fret Barber:
“Take a little off the sides!”
Fretting expert Dan Erlewine designed this ingenious tool. It quickly and precisely files away some (or all) of the fret tang barbs to control fret compression, relieve backbow, and make installing frets easier.
Often, when the fret tang matches the width of the slot, the barbs can add enough mass to create more compression than you want. The pressure from this added metal, multiplied by the number of frets, sometimes is enough to force the neck into a back-bow.
More often, it simply makes it hard to install the frets — especially with the harder rosewood and ebony fretboards.
Using all of these tools is probably not realistic unless you have a very vibrant fret repair operations. Using one or two of them really makes since, especially the time consuming chores, such as nipping fret tangs for bound fingerboards and being able to install frets in a curved fingerboard without much effort.
Just analyise which one have the biggest payback potential for you and add them to your collection.
Tags: fret job, Fret Repair, how to repair frets, specialty fret repair tools
