Official Luthiers Forum!

So far I have cut fret slots for 8 dulcimers and 6 guitars with this saw. I have not sharpened it to save the set of teeth. I don't think I can be successful so Will buy another saw soon.

I might get a second one to use for final cut and cut the slot with older saw which has been sharpened and has compromised set/width.


I like the cork faced block shown above and will make one soon.

Does anyone else just freehand cut with a fret saw? The first few guitars I built I made a miter box and found it to be a royal PIA. Maybe a well made one would work better but now I just mark out all the fret positions with a ruler that measures 100'th inch and then score a line with a razor blade and a square and simply cut it with the fret saw. My saw has a depth stop so that helps but still. It's not hard to saw a straight line with a good back saw and a well marked line. And I've compared some of my own hand cut fretboards to those of pre-slotted boards and frankly they are more accurate.

Mark the slot location with a knife and use a small 'L' shaped block with a rare earth magnet, and no need for
expensive templates. Unless,of course, you're doing a lot at a time.

Brent

I've read old timers used a lead block, hammer and a nail to set individual teeth on high TPI blades.

_________________
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.

Clay

Just check "saw set patents" and you will see that no stone was left unturned a hundred years ago. A lead block works great, but the problem is still getting a punch small enough to hit just one tooth. Also, even with magnifiers on it is difficult to stay on task and not get one wrong, and it frequently breaks the tooth off bending it to the other side. Let us know how it works for you - you are going to try it, aren;t you?

Ed

I use a type of mitre box but it's very quick in use. It's very much like a carpenters wooden mitre block except of course it has saw cuts at every fret position. I made my own but it's possible to buy a ready slotted fretboard and saw down the middle length wise, that would then form the guides for the hand saw. These will need to be glued/mounted on a wooden block in which the blank fretboard sits. The slot in the bought fretboard would need to be then cut right through it's thickness at every slot.
Initially I was worried that it would lose accuracy over repeatedly inserting a saw into the slots so I wicked in superglue to the endgrain of each saw slot. I think I'm through around 30 fretboards and it's still very accurate. Of course eventually it will lose accuracy, in which case I'll renew the slot guides.

13 PPI isn't that fine in the greater scheme of things, at least not when it comes to dovetail saws. I have a saw set that I'm pretty sure I used at that number of PPI. It's a Somax, which is a copy of an old Eclipse saw set. I think they have two models (don't quote me on that!) one that has a slimmer anvil for finer PPI. I know that with the old Eclipse some folk used to remove the anvil and grind it so that it was slimmer, obviously for the finer saws.

Hi Ed,
I think you have me confused with Colin, which I will take as a compliment. I would consider using a lead block, hammer, and nail if that was the best method available. The nail might be better than a punch, being softer and maybe less likely to snap a tooth. I'm sure the lead block would help in that regard too. Although that method might appear a little crude to some I'm sure with practice a person could get the set close enough that a light "stoning" would set things right.
Setting the teeth is not necessary every time a saw is sharpened. In some cases it won't even require jointing. A few light passes of a file in the gullets and hitting the tips may give a satisfactory result if the saw is in otherwise good form.

Hi Michael,
13 PPI is not extremely fine, but that person's statement was directed at saws with a higher PPI count. I haven't tried setting groups of teeth, but it does seem like a reasonable method where the saw set would bend more than one tooth.

I used to have a saw with a stupidly fine TPI that I used for frets - something like 21 TPI. Back in the day my eyes were good enough that I could resharpen it with a needle file. A few years ago I bought the Veritas x-cut carcass saw with a much more sensible 14 TPI. I think it's the sharpest saw I've ever bought and I've bought quite a few over the years. The kerf it gave was a bit wide for 'standard' fretwire so I stoned some of the set off. I initially bought it for cutting frets (and nothing else) but you know how it goes, it cut so well that it just became the saw that I use for many tasks. Some don't like it's modern looks. I really should buy another. . . . one dedicated for fretting.

I sharpened my 10 year old StewMc fret saw yesterday. Seems to be ok but still testing. Hard to see what I was doing. used 10 power hood from jewelers supply which he says is 3 times mag. Found several how to tips on youtub.

Took 20 min once I got courage to start.Used Ex DDBL slim taper about 5 in of teeth. Took 2/3 stroke and stopped. Made big improvement.