End Nippers

[Disputoman]

I recently decided to embark on the ever-so-dangerous, or so I've been told, voyage of refretting. Of course, I am doing this first on my old Samick cheapo strat copy guitar before I touch my Ibanez RG. I thought I had all of the supplies for the job but when I tested out the end nippers, they didn't seem to grab the fret the way I had imagined. The pair of pliers I bought were made by "Channel Lock" and I believe they didn't work as expected because they were slightly rounded at the tip. So my question is this: do I need to have a pair of end nippers that are ground flush or can I grind my current pair of end nippers flat?

Thanks,

Brett

[bigdguitars]

grind them thats what I did an about 10 other luthiers I know.

[jay5]

Yeah, you need to grind them down so they cut as close as possible.

[jnewman]

By the way... Channel lock's are pretty nice, actually. They're good tools.

[Shamrock]

Not that I really like to spend extra money but Stew-Mac sells fret pullers that are precision ground for the specific job of pulling frets.

[westhemann]

Not that I really like to spend extra money but Stew-Mac sells fret pullers that are precision ground for the specific job of pulling frets.

←

yeah..but he is talking about cutters,not pullers.

[guitman32]

If you have a Dremel, use it with a cutting wheel to trim the frets...I found that it works much cleaner than the end nippers. The only reason I do this is that it makes filing the fret-ends down a bit easier since the ends are cleaner.