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Going to be bending the wire and installing the fret wire on my board soon. I bought a slotted and 12" radiused board from stew-mac, and then cleaned up the roughness with 150 up to 400 grit sandpaper and a 12" radius block.
I dont have a fret press, or cauls, or anything, I was wondering if I should put super glue in there, and what kind? Also, how do you put your superglue in there? I have read to bend the wire just above your radius and, tap the fret in with a radiused caul and a hammer, then tape around the frets while leaving a small space around the frets and put 2 drops on one side and 1 drop on the other, and the glue gets "sucked up" somehow. This doesn't seem right to me somehow so I was wondering how you did it and if you might be willing to give me some good info.

Not sure what "just above the radius" means, but you should bend your fret wire to just slightly smaller radius than your board. I use a 10" radius fret for a 12" board.
A lot of people use some type of glue, like titebond, as a lubricant. I don't. And if you hammer them in properly, there's no need for super glue, IMHO. I just slightly bevel the edges of the fret slot and hammer them in. I start with seating the ends, and then hammer from the center outward to seat the rest of the fret. Use a light but firm, sharp tap with the hammer. Takes a couple of frets, but if you pay attention to how they go in you'll get the hang of it pretty quick. The only time I use superglue is if I get a fret or two where the ends like to stick up. This is usually on repairs, not newly fretted boards. Then I'll stick a dab of super glue under the fret and clamp it down til the glue dries.

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

I've only done one so far, but it went well. I used the radius block as a pressing caul, with a cam clamp to apply pressure. Then jam at it with a small flat wood block to squeeze out the last couple gaps. No hammer. The thought of smacking my beautifully crafted neck with a hunk of metal scares me. Plus pressing gets the fret in without crimping it at all, so you generally don't need to level and recrown.

Make sure you only use the very end of the radius block though, since it does dent it up and you want to keep most of it pristine for sanding.

Glue, I like LMI white and hide, because they can be softened and cleaned out with hot water if it ever needs refretted, and don't risk staining the wood like CA.

How did you get the glue in there without getting it on the fretboard?

I do it like Mike.
I superglued them in once, and regretted because of the cleanup.
A lot of people at the acoustic forum use hide glue, because it is easy to clean up, and lubes the slot.
They also put a little chamfer at the top of the slot with a file,
to make starting the fret easier.
Good luck!
Tap-tap-tap.

Good thing I have me a bottle of franklin hide glue right here!
Just no fret bender

If your fretwire came coiled up, it may be close enough already. I didn't bother altering the bend of mine, even though it was a tighter radius than the fingerboard (16" radius). Squeezed in easy enough.

As for glue, don't worry about making a mess of it. A scrub with some warm water cleans it right off.

And bottled hide glue is generally frowned upon in lutherie, but this does seem like a great use for it. Easy to use, and it's mostly just a gap filler since it can't much bond with metal anyway, so strength doesn't matter.

EDIT: Just noticed you mentioned the board is from StewMac, who sell straight fret wire... I guess you'll have to try and bend it then. I think it can be done with the flush cut nippers, to lightly grip the tang and bend the wire. I think there's a video on StewMac about it. My coil came from Shane at High Mountain. Got some of the gold evo stuff from LMI too, which looks like usable radius as-is. StewMac's ought to be great for flat classical fingerboards though Probably should tack some onto my order that I've been building up, since I want to build one of those pretty soon...

Build your own fret bender. I built one similar to the one in this thread(post #7). It works great, and cost about $20.
http://www.mylespaul.com/forums/luthiers-corner/47770-diy-fretbender-easy-build.html

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Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Post 32 looks to be the easiest to build.

LOL. Would probably work fine, and get you in the ball park. That should be good enough. we're not building swiss watches here.

_________________
Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Okay, so, I tried to fret the telecaster today. Didn't do so well. I used my fret bender, tapped them in just like I was supposed to, but the edges of the fret wont stay down, I tried super glue, but the tang just isn't catching, I did notice that the fret slots seemed too deep for the tang, usually I see the fret tang flush against the bottom of the fret. I used a stewmac radiused board with stewmac fretwire, but it was a disaster all the way down the line, so I just took all the frets out, got the usual little tearout places, so I got the radius block out and sanded the fretboard back down.
Anyone have any advice? Or should I just send this to someone and pay them to fret it for me?

StewMac sells a tool that crimps the tang to give it more width for wide or worn slots.

I noticed above that someone said they didn't want to use a hammer because they didn't want to hit the finger board with a hunk of metal? Don't use a framing hammer or ball peen!!! Use a fretting hammer with hard rubber heads.

Well, it's gotten byond my skill level and tool set. I tried to do it without the right tools and got bit, but this is too nice of a project to scrap, if anyone wants to make some money fretting this thing for me, let me know.

How are you verifying the radius and trueness of your fretboard,....radius guage and straight edge, I hope.
You may have accidentally oversanded the fretboard edges to a smaller curve.
Are the fret slots still deeper than the tang?
Try cutting slot depth to about .005" deeper than the tang to give a bit more "cushion".
If you now have a true fretboard, a very slight over-radius on the fretwire usually is good.
By over-radius , I mean 12.5 for a 12 radius. That small difference is all I need to make
things right.

Don't give up, better luck with the next try.

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How long is that in luthyears?

I dont have a fretsaw, and I have used a straight edge and my radius block to ensure my radius was right. I think I just messed up bending my fretwire and didnt have enough radius in it. No biggie, and lesson learned, but I really do have to send this thing off to get it done right.
Anyone know of someone that will put the frets on for me?

Well, after sanding the fretboard back down, I decided to try again on my own, I will buy some fretwire with a deeper tang, and will buy the actual right equipment for the job this time.
Anyone have any advice on how to get superglue out of a slot? Should I scrape it or saw it with a japanese fretsaw?

I use back side of the blade of an Xacto knife to clean fret slots out. Not the sharp side.
If you are using StewMac wire with a .023 tang width, A StewMac .020 gauged nut file,
(part #0828) Will work well to clean and/or deepen the slot.

Make sure to clean the fret wire before you do anything. I use a paper towel and 91% Isopropyl Alcohol.
Wipe until the paper is clean.

When you radius the wire (12" radius) use your brass fret press insert (#4371) to check the radius against, and radius the fret to just a little tighter radius than it.

If you are having trouble with fret ends popping up, get a piece of plastic pickguard material,
(an old strat type trem spring cover works great) and lay on top of the frets, then put your radius sanding block (#0417) on top of it, radius side of the block toward the plastic. Use a neck rest caul (#4479) on the back side of the neck and clamp. Then turn the neck on its side and put a drop or two of thin CA (Use a whip tip) on each of the fret ends. Leave clamped for a few minutes.
I always glue the frets.
CA will release no problem, by heating the frets with a soldering gun.

A slick custom thing I do is,
I always back cut the fret wire tangs on all fret jobs weather it is a bound board or not. That way the tang will not have to be clipped off, just the crown. This keeps the wire from distorting when clipped, and you will never feel the slightest hint of a tang when playing, even if the board shrinks over the years.
The feel of a bound board without the binding.

Well, looks like I finally got the trick, no raised edges, and I put a few drops of CA glue on the sides, all perfectly flat, but the frets are going to need a ton of dressing.

Cool.
After you get all the frets installed, check the neck for straightness again before leveling.
Also, 3M Flexible Polishing Papers are excellent for polishing frets.
Alternate sanding the length of the frets, then the length of the board. Just run the grades.
They last a long time. Well worth the price.

Yeah it is my understanding that fretting a guitar will cause a backbow in the guitars sometimes. The first pic makes my neck look like it's crooked currently, but I checked it with a straight edge before I fretted it, it's just the way I am holding it in that pic.

Yeah....the harder the fretboard material the more apt you are to get a backbow....given the same fret slot width. With harder fretboard materials I use a .023" gap for the wire I use and do not use any glue. If I'm doing a softer maple fretboard I make the gap .022" and use a tiny bead of epoxy. Using a syringe and a tiny needle it goes into the groove nicely. Most local feed stores carry syringes and needles. You have to sand down the tip of the needle flat to get the glue down into the groove but that just takes a minute.

I use a fretting caul and arbor to install frets. It was murder to get them started with the caul until I added a small chamfer to the groove and bent the frets with just a little tighter radius than the fretboard. Now it's going pretty good but I still need to improve before I'm comfortable fretting. It drives me a little nuts knowing that one false move can wreck a bunch of work. I just finished fretting four necks yesterday and I felt a burden lifted when I got the last fret in.

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I read Emerson on the can. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...true...but a consistent reading of Emerson has its uses nevertheless.

StuMusic

I recently did a fret job on a 71 Framus S/360. Les Paul style, German axe.
It was an overbound set neck, ebony board, with zero fret.
It had a good, true straight neck and board, so I decided to save the nibs on the binding.

To do it, I measured and made note, the length of each fret that I pulled. I used a digital caliper to measure. Then I sized and prepped each new fret in a vice. All I had to do to prep the board, was clean and chamfer the slots, and polish the board. They didn't glue the original frets, so cleaning the slots was easy.
I had to center the new frets in the board before pressing. Then level, crown, and polish.
The old frets were so worn, that they would bend easily, so I had to re-radius them before measuring. It was a tedious job, but turned out great, and the original binding with nibs wasn't touched.

When installing a new zero fret, make sure it is a loose fit in the slot. File the tang barbs until you can push it in with your finger, and glue. If you try to press it in, you stand a chance of busting out the end of the fretboard.

I am also about to start fretting a board ... my first build ... a fret virgin ..lol.

TWO QUESTION:

1. Some people above have mentioned CA glue. I'm not familiar with this. What is CA?

2. I too had trouble with practise frets popping up at the ends, should I use YELLOW CARPENTERS' glue (this is all I have). I too will be using a press and possibly a clamp.

Thanks,

J

Jeff,
CA = super glue.

And as far as the second part, I found I wasn't radiusing near enough to keep the sides in, with those 3 frets (all my whopping amount of experience doing it correctly) I put the fret on the unslotted portion of the fretboard to make sure the sides were at a downward arch and left the middle with a gap from the fretboard radius just ever so slightly. It worked for me! Here are some pics of how it turned out with natural light on the guitar.


However, I am probably not the best person to talk about fretwork with lol.

I did learn a VALUABLE lesson, never fret a guitar with the neck on the body again.