Woodenspoke Posted February 7, 2007 Report Share Posted February 7, 2007 (edited) I have no problems with the posts on this forum regarding the Home Depot fret benders but I want to make one similar to the Stumac all steel (at least the main roller). I have the LMI plans and that is really no help. However I have some technical questions. Hopefully someone is in possession of a Stumac bender or has some answers. I checked my fret tang thickness for several brands of wire and find they vary greatly, from .032 to .037. My assumption here is the slot on the main fret bender roller has to exceed the maximum fret tang thickness (barbs included). What is the width on your Stumac bender's slot? Second question is more general. In order to correctly position the holes for the guide rollers, I would need to know what radius you would bend the fret wire if you were fretting the small radius of a 7 1/4 " fret board (the smallest radius on my gauges). I guess a classical fret board would be less. Minimum bent wire radius? Any help would be appreciated GB Edited February 7, 2007 by Woodenspoke Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnewman Posted February 7, 2007 Report Share Posted February 7, 2007 I'm not sure what you mean by 7 1/4 deg fret board. Old Fender fretboards were a radius of 7 1/4" or so, meaning that the bent fretwire would make an arc along the circumference of a circle of 7 1/4" radius. Maybe that's what you mean? It's not degrees though. 7 1/4" radius is actually the tightest radius I know of anyone using, most these days are 9 1/2", 10", 12", or even 16" (or a compound radius). From what I've seen, people usually just cut a slot for one of the bearings to be bolted in to, so that they can adjust the bending amount. I have not made a fretwire bender myself, but I think if you just make a vertical slot and look at it for a while, you should be able to figure out how long the slot needs to be to get the full range of bending. Classical fretboards tend to be flat (infinite radius) or nearly flat and you likely wouldn't need a bender. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hydrogeoman Posted February 7, 2007 Report Share Posted February 7, 2007 Check out Jay5's excellent plans Clicky I built mine similar to Jay's and it works like a charm for just about any desired radius. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soapbarstrat Posted February 7, 2007 Report Share Posted February 7, 2007 (edited) I own the classic 1987 model of the StewMac bender, bought back in the good old days when it was around $72.00. It has a brass roller with two grooves for the fret-tangs. One groove is about .035" and the other groove is about .041". I only use the larger groove once in a blue moon. Edit to add: I think the .035" slot probably used to be a little more narrow and got widened from running hundreds of feet of wire through it over the years. I was concerned that when I run stainless steel fret-wire through my bender, it would be a little hard on the brass roller. I then contacted StewMac to see if I could buy the current steel roller part. The guy said they don't sell parts for the benders (I absolutely HATE that stewmac doesn't provide replacement parts for most of their tools). But he also said that Dan Erlewine uses a bender with the brass roller for stainless wire. Perhaps he said that to shut me up, I don't know. I tend to be a little paranoid about stuff like that. Edited February 7, 2007 by soapbarstrat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodenspoke Posted February 7, 2007 Author Report Share Posted February 7, 2007 I fixed the typo, wanted to say inches not degrees. Thanks for correcting my post??? I didn't know they had two fret slots on the old brass rollers; Hum. I wonder what they use now. Looking at the pictures I wonder how they centered the two slots over a small bearing? What was the full dimension of the brass Stumac roller if you don't mind. My thoughts are to use a .040 slot on a steel roller of 1 1/8" by 3/8" wide. I have experimented already and found I needed to increase the slot size, it was removing material from the barbs. My assumption is that the brass should work with Stainless steel wire as long as you use the large slot so the tangs cant remove material. GB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soapbarstrat Posted February 7, 2007 Report Share Posted February 7, 2007 Just over 1/2" wide for the grooved brass wheel, and just under 1/2" for the two non-grooved roller bearings. I'm quite sure the grooved wheel on the current one is steel. I used ball bearings taken out of a few old trashed VCRs to make a fret-wire *straightening* machine. It's a damn cool design, but keeping it under wraps in case the opportunity to sell the idea to StewMac would ever pop up. Seems they like to just take ideas from others and only pay their own R&D team, from how it's looked to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maiden69 Posted February 8, 2007 Report Share Posted February 8, 2007 take the brass roller out to a machine shop, it shouldn't be to expensive to get a SS replacememnt, and that size stock they have laying around by the hundreds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodenspoke Posted February 8, 2007 Author Report Share Posted February 8, 2007 How did Stumac secure the roller to the cap screw, I assume its a cap screw? If you take it to a shop to be replaced you may need to replace the cap screw if you cant remove it. I am planning on using a loctite product that is non removable, I have a bottle already. If you have anymore details on the Stumac let me know. GB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soapbarstrat Posted February 8, 2007 Report Share Posted February 8, 2007 From what I remember, if I put an allen wrench on that cap screw and loosen, then the handle comes loose on the other side and the cap screw and brass wheel stay as one unit. So, if I'm remembering that correctly, that probably means the brass roller is a tight press-on fit, onto the cap screw. Here's mine : http://onlinerock.com/services/soapbarstra...et-bender2b.jpg Frank Ford has the same thing : http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Machining/...028refret32.jpg The larger slot on the brass roller on mine, has chewed up marks all around the side walls of the slot, from some monster-sized tang wire I once had. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thegarehanman Posted February 8, 2007 Report Share Posted February 8, 2007 Um...you guys know you can get wire that's in rolls(meaning prebent) from most suppliers(except stewmac...how could they sell you an $80 fret bender if there were no frets to bend ). You don't have to make the wire perfectly match the board to get it to seat right, just close, preferable with a tighter radius than the board. I'm sure most of you were aware of these things already, I just figured the original poster would want to know. peace, russ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soapbarstrat Posted February 8, 2007 Report Share Posted February 8, 2007 Yeah well, I have around 1,000 feet of fret-wire which was radiused at the factory at 9" to 12", yet I'm still using the fret-bending machine for every job. Not only that, but I'm also using the fret-wire straightening machine on just about every job (I make the wire harder by straightening, bending, straightening, etc etc). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodenspoke Posted February 8, 2007 Author Report Share Posted February 8, 2007 I see from the pictures that the Brass roller is pretty big and so are the bearings. I have found that I didn't have luck with press fitting the roller onto the cap screw in 12L14 steel, it had to be glued (I have been experimenting). The final dimensions are the last part of the puzzle. With all that work bending and re-bending frets why not just use stainless frets. I reviewed one of my fretting videos and I think a minimum radius of 7 1/4" on the bender should work out. If you think I would need a smaller radius let me know why? GB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soapbarstrat Posted February 9, 2007 Report Share Posted February 9, 2007 (edited) I guess about 40% of my fretwire is stainless, but haven't used any yet. Couldn't pass up the opportunity to buy a bunch of it for around 70 cents a foot (German factory was in a promotional period with the fret-wire. Price much higher now). Almost everyone thinks the stainless is wear *proof*, but fact is, it's just more wear *resistant* than regular fret-wire. My process of hardening the regular fret-wre is not much work, and I can still use my normal fret-cutters on it. I don't know how tight the radius goes on the stew-Mac bender. At least I don't remember. Assume something like 6". Depends on how you install frets and the radius of the fret-board. If you think there's a fair chance you'll be doing super vintage stuff, you might even come upon a board with a 6" radius. I found that for hammering, I like a 6" radius on the fret-wire. And I have a whole other tool that puts a 6" radius on wire in a couple seconds and the frets are already cut to length before doing it. Someone should be clever enough to guess what the tool is. But I favor pressing over hammering, in which case I only want a slight over-bend, if any. Edited February 9, 2007 by soapbarstrat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnewman Posted February 9, 2007 Report Share Posted February 9, 2007 Just curious, but have you actually tested whether or not you're really making the fretwire any harder? That's not really the normal method for work hardening. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soapbarstrat Posted February 9, 2007 Report Share Posted February 9, 2007 Just curious, but have you actually tested whether or not you're really making the fretwire any harder? That's not really the normal method for work hardening. I don't have the equipment to test the hardness. I do it because of page 142 in Erlewine's GPRG. And then I've seen an article by Harry Fleishman (not sure how his name is spelled) about the same technique. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnewman Posted February 9, 2007 Report Share Posted February 9, 2007 Interesting... I don't see why it wouldn't work, I was just curious if you'd measured how much difference it makes since it's a little different from the "industrial" processes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soapbarstrat Posted February 9, 2007 Report Share Posted February 9, 2007 it's supposed to increase the vickers hardness by 14 to 20 points. I also wonder if the same technique hardens type 305 stainless steel (which is what I think the stainless fret-wire is). Probably not. Works on the regular fret-wire, because it's mostly copper. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodenspoke Posted February 10, 2007 Author Report Share Posted February 10, 2007 It would be a real adventure to shave down the barbs. Iif you had to how would you re-barb the wire? Seems like an a lot of problems could crop up using stainless. Does it at least have a standard tang, not that any wire could be deemed to have a standard size tang. I will adjust my bender for a 5" to 6 " radii a minor modification to the plans. GB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soapbarstrat Posted February 10, 2007 Report Share Posted February 10, 2007 I guess you're just adding a "side note" that the stainless would be a pain if one wanted to shave barbs (not that it has anything to do with the radius). I don't know if it would be a big deal. I hear from some that the stainless will quickly trash files, and then some say it doesn't. Heck, I guess I could make a diamond abrasive fret barber if I wanted to. The tangs on the stainless is pretty typical and actually a hair or two more narrow than Stewmacs wire. As far as punching more beads into the tangs, I doubt any fret-wire is too tough for my carbide barb punching tool. Maybe one of these days I'll mod that sucker a little more, so I can punch a hole right through the tang. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattia Posted February 10, 2007 Report Share Posted February 10, 2007 Soapbar: who's the German supplier? Got a URL? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jnewman Posted February 10, 2007 Report Share Posted February 10, 2007 it's supposed to increase the vickers hardness by 14 to 20 points. I also wonder if the same technique hardens type 305 stainless steel (which is what I think the stainless fret-wire is). Probably not. Works on the regular fret-wire, because it's mostly copper. Interesting... in something as soft as fretwire, that's a pretty big difference. As far as I know, most stainless alloys respond pretty well to cold-working, but I could be wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodenspoke Posted February 11, 2007 Author Report Share Posted February 11, 2007 I tried to find out some information in the Stainless steel alloy used for the wire with no luck. It must be a machinable grade otherwise it would be impossible to work. What I was trying to say earlier is if you happened to use stainless for lets say a re fret job, it would be a pain especially if you have to modify the wire. Even with carbide tools the additional forces needed to reshape the wire would be alot greater. I don't believe a diamond file would be necessary to remove barbs, just a lot more time and effort. I have read that you need a perfect fretboard because you do not want to have to recrown the wire? There is always the new Gold copper alloy wire which I have never used but is sold bu LMI. I hear its somewhere in between nickel silver and stainless. I'm not sure I like the gold color. Next it will be titanium wire and strings. lol Putting the finishing touches on the bender tomorrow. GB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soapbarstrat Posted February 11, 2007 Report Share Posted February 11, 2007 (edited) Yeah, LMI has some of the German wire. I have some of the gold stuff. It's the most expensive fret-wire out there, but beats the hell out of buying bronze wire from Warwick. The gold stuff is actually a true bronze, but with a slight twist. It contains .1% Titanium, no joke. Funny thing was during the time I was waiting for that wire to come in, a customer came along who said it would be really cool if I could put the Warwick bronze wire on his bass. I then told him how much the Warwick wire sells for, and he said FORGET IT ! (ok, I guess that means Warwick wire is the most expensive out there) Then I told him of the gold wire I would soon have, thinking it would be a decent compromise. He agreed to that, then gave me a huge tip included with the price of the job. After he was raving about how great the bass sounded, I began to learn more and more about what the gold wire was actually made of, and so it turned out that he ended up getting his original request of bronze wire, but I didn't even know that while doing the job. Oh yeah, I did the work hardening process on the gold wire. It's still mostly copper. being bronze means it also has Tin in it (15%) and Iron (1%). Edited February 11, 2007 by soapbarstrat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElysianGuitars Posted February 12, 2007 Report Share Posted February 12, 2007 Check out Jay5's excellent plans Clicky I built mine similar to Jay's and it works like a charm for just about any desired radius. thanks for posting this, made my own fret bender today... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmarlin Posted February 12, 2007 Report Share Posted February 12, 2007 I was following one on ebay and missed the end time today but it didnt matter cause it sold for $103 plus $12 shipping Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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