Official Luthiers Forum!

Dave Collins is well known for innovation and since we completed the move out of the People's Republic Of Ann Arbor into the sticks several miles out of town he's been innovating again.

As you may recall Dave is behind the Collins Saddle Mill, the Collins Fret Buffer, the Collins Headstock Jig and many more.

Please meet the Collins Fret F*****.

That's actually the real name of and I think he may demo it at Northwood but don't quote me on that.

Dave and I are serious Loofiers... and this is not a basement or garage pursuit for us it's how we make our livings. We do a LOT of fret work and have a reputation for our super precise, compound radius, uber low action if desired fret work. We are also getting older at least I am and Dave is always looking for ways to improve efficiencies.

So he married diamond crowning files to a reciprocal tool automating the crowning process and GREATLY speeding things up.

We don't just recrown newly fretted instruments after leveling things we also have to recrown frets that may only be .015" high or have had ALL of their crown removed in the leveling process. This means that in the trenches of the repair world we may have a very long slog to recrown some frets.

I get tired and my hands start to hurt and he reports the same so he set out to marry a power tool to a crowning file and speed things up and make it vastly easier for us too. What has resulted works fantastic, has less potential for damage in my experience with it than manually doing this and takes the fatigue factor and tosses it since this is not tiring at all.

And as men..... we get to use power tools too

So why the name Fret F***** ?

Because when searching for reciprocating tools that already existed we came upon.... sex toys and sex toy sellers on the Internet who sell machines designed to do what I at times want to suggest to some folks that they should go ahead and do.... Who knew you could buy something specifically engineered to have sex with you.

I'm still wondering what kind of sheath he's going to put on it and may not be able to post a pic when he does.

Anyway again we do lots of volume and appreciate solutions that 1) ensure the safety of the valuable personal property of others and 2) do an excellent job and 3) offer efficiencies so my Sig Sigma days can be relived in my old age.

So with all this said please meet the Collins Fret F*****

The files are both StewMac and Chinese ones that we are trying out as pictured with three different sizes per file. The tool and file is pretty light weight too and easy to use.

He's built a new circuit that controls the speed and trigger to better fit our needs.

We have no plans to market this thing we are not in the sex toy business but maybe we should be?

And if you are going to Northwoods maybe you will have an opportunity to try it out yourself on a guitar....

I've been laughing for several weeks but was successful in keeping this all within the Cone Of Silence....

April Fools, right?

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

With the current date, I just think he's surrendered.
Too many night shifts will do that

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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.

As George Takei would say, "Oh My!"

Yeah this is the real deal and it works great. Should cut maybe 20 minutes off from a difficult fret dress where a lot of material needs to be removed.

This is being shown in some private spaces too in the trade and the comments are hysterical.

No need to disparage basements and garages…;)

Actually I beg to differ and will differ anyway. It's often thankless to expose some people.... on this forum to new ideas or how the interests of someone working in the trade on the repair (or building on the professional level) side has very different concerns from the basement or garage hobbyist. I'll have someone in my shop tomorrow morning that I have to meet a deadline and expectations for and that difference alone is huge. This makes tools that make our operations more efficient of great interest to me and to others here who may be on that StewMac dread kit not so much.

Olsen of Olsen fame as a builder was well known 20 years ago to have 65 dedicated routers each one dedicated to a specific task.

Not an insult and should not have been taken that way, please don't go there it is the single largest reason why most pros will not and do not participate here. There is a huge difference between the concerns of the working in the trade pro and most folks who participate here on a hobby level and/or another way of saying a machine that takes 20 minutes off a fret dress may not be of interest to everyone.

Peace man

Hesh, is this a typo, or do you actually crown frets that are that low. My fret files bottom out on the fret board if the fret is too low.

Nope not a typo there are reasons and times to have to do this. You're heard of Gibson fretless wonders that's one possibility. A fretless wonder with lots of wear can get you down this low.

But just wear and a roller coaster neck can create a situation where some frets get very low and a refret is not available budget wise.

We safe our fret files so they don't mar the board and can go lower. 3 corner files are used too at times and mine are also safed and this is the old school method.

Time for some new files, and new techniques. Get some 3 cornered files from StewMac, some stainless fret guards, and learn to roll your wrists while filing on the frets. I cover the technique in this old thread. Pix, too.

viewtopic.php?f=10137&t=52354&hilit=spook

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

Exactly! I'm slow with a three corner but I can still get it done. I've seen folks whip along like nobody's business and it was pretty impressive.