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Tips-n-Tricks - Fret Nipping catcher


HuntinDoug

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Wasn't sure where to put this...

I thought it would be cool for PG members to post some "tricks" that luthiers use to make builds & everyday stuff easier. Mostly simple stuff that anyone can do. I'll start:

I'd say 99% of my builds have bound fingerboards with semi-hemispherical fret ends. It's a lot of up front work, but it's worth it in the end. Fretting a bound board means nipping the fret ends which produces small shards. I sometimes work on frets in the evenings as I watch TV. The last thing I need is the sharp off cut pieces flying around in my family room.

The solution is a couple of rare earth magnets placed near the exit shoot of the tang nippers, or under the clipper. It catches almost all of the off cut pieces. After about a dozen frets, I just scrape them off into the trash... Works well.

post-8067-0-56893300-1387765198_thumb.jp

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After reading this I feel so stupid. I had no clue the frets were made from magnetic alloys...

Great tip, thanks for sharing. This is what I do (so much more low tech...)

I have a similar problems with the offcuts, altho I always work in the workshop (working in front of the TV has an extremely low WAF in my family). As I don't want any of the offcuts to remain on the workbench and scratch the next guitar on there I use two large beach towels stitched together on three of the perimeters (right word?) laying on the bench. So I can easily just shake every lost sharp bit of fret off. And if it gett messed up for some reason I'll flip the towels over. And when that side get dirty I turn the thing inside out and I have two new fresh sides. Then I throw it in the washing machine. Much easier to get the towels in the machine compared to trying to get my bench top in there...

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