Official Luthiers Forum!

Hey everybody,
This is my first post, a little bit about me, I am a 17 year old aspiring guitar maker and musician. I recently found this junky fender copy for 25 bucks at a resale shop, and I wanted to refret it with brass frets, as the steel ones were cheap and poorly installed, the fingerboard is East Indian Rosewood. So I pulled them using heat and water underneath the frets and I pulled gently, yet there was still some chipping. Is this normal for someones first refretting? how did I do? Looking forward to being a part of this community!

http://imgur.com/a/B3L03

Thanks,
Benjamin

Looks pretty clean. It is hard to pull frets without a bit of chipping.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

Hi Benjamin, welcome to OLF and the sometimes frustrating world of instrument repair.

That looks pretty normal - there is almost always some damage to the fretboard. I'm curious about your choice of fretwire, how you plan to radius it and how you will install it.

Thanks for the welcome!
I'm looking at the Gold Evo solid brass alloy frets from LMII simply because it contrasts nicely with the rosewood and unlike most brass its hard enough to use as frets. I don't know the current radius of the fingerboard but I want a standard 9.5" radius used on Fenders.

I thought gold EVO wire was merely brass colored....

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Its a copper alloy, composition CuSn15Fe1Ti0

I haven't used Evo but my understanding is that its somewhere between standard nickel-silver and stainless in hardness. Stainless is pretty hard on tools and this might be a good option if you are worried about the wear of standard wire. What I meant to ask about the radius is how you will put the same radius in your frets that the board has - please don't do like a guy on another forum and just bang the heck out of flat wire.

When I have bought fretwire from LMI it has been coiled (unlike some other sources where its just straight pieces - that might be close enough that you don't have to worry about it).

I have used EVO on 6 or more necks. Freeman is correct in that the hardness is between nickel-silver and stainless which gives it greater wear resistance than the standard frets. EVO can be worked with standard tools, no problem.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

The chipping is normal not just for the first fret job but for any... welcome to the forum.

Actually gentlemen.... chipping is not to be expected and is better viewed as an exception and not the norm.... If you use the tools as designed with the nippers being a prime example chipping can be eliminated or at least greatly reduced. The flat face of the nippers remains in contact with the board keeping the potential chips pressed firmly into the fret board as the jaws close. The jaws are beveled and when they close they gently "lift" the fret, not pull the fret. If you are at all pulling upward you will likely chip the crap out of the board and that's my entire point here, don't "pull" frets. Use the tool as intended and gently lift the frets.

If you don't have beveled nippers - get some....

Rosewood is much less chip prone than ebony and old ebony can be the very worse. However a bead of water along side the fret can reduce chipping with ebony and at the very least keep the chip from flying across the room into Dave's Starbucks coffee so I can find it and super glue that sucker back down. Stay and take that! Yep, I talk to my refrets and sometimes they talk back and man can they be rude and opinionated.... Who knew...

Prior to "lifting......" frets with the nippers used as intended... I heat my frets with a Weller soldering gun with a grove filed in the business end to keep it on the fret. There is less chipping potential as well with well heated frets. Stay away from binding you can smoke it and never put the tool, the soldering gun away until it's cool to the touch.

As Steve said EVO can be used with regular tools. I use stainless except for the largest wire with regular tools too, it's harder on my arthritic hands these days but my tools have never been damaged by stainless beyond my diamond files wearing a bit faster.

As for Benjamin you did good!!! Fretting is an art and something that can become pretty important with players when it's not right. It's also one of the important things that changes a guitar from a woodworking project into it's true purpose, a tool for a musician.

Welcome to the forum.

What about the bigger chips? should I just ignore them? I mean, its not like this is a 59' Les Paul and I don't have any teflon to do a fret dam and use glue.

You don't want chips to show after all of your hard work. If the chips are tiny a small drop of CA and sanding in the direction of the grain can fill them nicely and make them invisible. Repeating this 2 to 3 times may be necessary if they are deep and you may have to clean out the fret slot from migrating glue and dust when finished but it makes them disappear.

Your fret slots should be cleaned out anyway and sized.... for the fret wire that you intend to use. By sized I mean the depth is checked and appropriate for your wire and the width is also appropriate for your wire. It's also a good idea to understand in advance how well the truss rod works, where it works, if it's double action (can save your butt....) and if compression is going to be an issue. So many considerations so little time....

Larger chips we usually save the actual chip and glue that sucker back down, you know... take that... If you don't have the chips it's better to fill larger divots or chip voids with actual wood pieced to fit, grain oriented correctly, etc.

If this sounds like a PITA it most certainly is and that's why I recommend not chipping the board in the first place (this is not directed at you or anyone specifically....).

I use quality thin CA for dust and glue and the same glue to glue a chip of wood back down. Once the board is cleaned up from the refret (perhaps scraped but not always, sanded, buffed, etc.) the repairs are invisible.

Stew Mac has a Book By Dan E. on fretting, highly recommended.

Also you're a hobbyist I get that but my world is different. Food for thought.

To me every guitar that I work on that is the personal property of someone else is treated just like I treat 59 Les Pauls. Good work habits are important to develop and subscribe to.

Thanks for the tips! I have been using woodcraft CA glue instead of big box store glue, is that passable or should I get something more catered to luthiers? By the way I noticed you are in Ann Arbor, I was born there! Really impressive violin making community there too.

Hey Benjamin: Ann Arbor is a very cool place as you know, I lived there for around 35 years and loved most of it. We have our unique challenges as you know but it's still a very cool place to be. As I get older though I do appreciate seeing Ann Arbor in my rear view mirror as I drive back to Tecumseh these days...

We have our share of world-class Luthiers here too as you mentioned. Because of the University and diversity almost anyone can turn up here from time to time and they seem to like to visit our repair shop when they do. We've been known to have great times with some famous folks and even throw one out who we didn't recognize. Not everyone watches 24..... You live and learn....

Yeah any quality, very thin and fresh CA is fine. I like Bob Smith which is what you usually find at hobby stores and under many private labels.

You can usr a piece of plastic ftom a food container for a fret dam.
And welcome to the jungle!

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Pat

Or you can get 0.020" teflon from ebay.

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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.