Bending Pre-cut Frets

[brian d]

I know there are various ways to bend lengths of fretwire before cutting, but how do you accurately bend the radius into pre-cut frets?

How much smaller radius radius do you bend it to than the fretboard? Is is about 10" or 11" radius bend in the fret for a 12" radius f/board?

Thanks,

Brian.

[Mattia]

Just, y'know, enough. So the middle of the fret sticks up a little (say, when the fret's placed in the slot without hammering/pressing, there's only just no gap between the bottom of the tang and the fretboard in the middle of the slot. Bit less is fine, bit more is fine, and the smaller the frets, the more forgiving they are of this variation). I just do this by eye, to be honest.

Also, I don't know any easy way to radius pre-cut frets; radius first, THEN cut them. Most pre-cut sets come radiussed, don't they?

[brian d]

Also, I don't know any easy way to radius pre-cut frets; radius first, THEN cut them. Most pre-cut sets come radiussed, don't they?

Dunno about most, but the Jim Dunlop ones come straight, and say that they're easy to bend

dunlop pre-cut frets

To me, that sounds that they're particularly soft....but I'm sure that can't be the case.

In the meantime, I don't have the $'s for a fret bender now, so any ideas would be appreciated.

cheers,

Brian.

[soapbarstrat]

I would never buy pre-cut frets unless maybe they were no more than $12.00 a pound. So far, that hasn't happened.

I have very little experience with bending short fret pieces (I've had the Stew-Mac roller bender for about 18 years).

But a while ago, I thought it would be fun to try.

I found a used fret that had something like a 7" radius, and then I made it fairly straight :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v398/soa...retbend3061.jpg

Then I bent it (using a "special " pair of pliers). It ended up with a 6" radius, even though I didn't want it bent that much :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v398/soa...retbend3062.jpg

The I hammered it into a scrap fret-board and it didn't work very well. Not a tight enough fit.

So then I punched bigger barbs into the fret tang and bent it again to a 6" radius (punching the barbs flattened the radius a little bit)

This time I pressed the fret in. Doesn't quite meet my standards, but it's not too bad :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v398/soa...retbend3064.jpg

I agree that I should have left the camera off. This was lame. LOL

Figures I'd forget one of the photos :

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v398/soa...retbend3063.jpg

[wardd]

I'll qualify this by saying I'm no expert, but this worked for me.

I made a radiused hard maple block, cut a slot across the curve and opened it so the fret wire would come in and out easily.

I then place the fret in the slot, clamp it at one end, push the other end down and tap it with a hammer.

Then reverse the direction and repeat.

Frets come out bent about the same as the pics in the previous post.

As usual, experiment first. (Especially when using my advice.)

Good Luck,

d ward