Pressing Frets In

[VesQ]

I don´t have those fretpresses what stewmac offers but I´have glue clamps. I've already used them with piece of woodenradiusblock to seat frets in. But next neck is going to be with compoundradius and I´m simply out of radiusblocks.

Maybe I´ll just try put the frets in with simple clue clamp, pressing the frets from several spots. If i´d be using hammer I´d had to hit each fret at least 3 times. So is cluingclamps much worse option ?

sorry about bad english..

[MzI]

The way I do it is I bought the the radius caul from stewmac that goes in there arbor press and I put it in my drill press. Made a neck support outta scrap 2x4 for underneath the neck and away I go.

MzI

[SwedishLuthier]

The idea behind pressing frets in is that you have a nice, even pressure al along the fret. You also have a backing clamp that has the same radii as the fretboard. That should in theory mean that you have a minimum of fret levelling to do. I don’t think that pressing the frets in with several glue clamps is a good idea. There is a risk that you kink the fret wire and you will have to remove the fret and start over again. Try making your fret cauls yourself. I have seen a tutorial here or on the mail page that describes it. They can even be made out of hard wood. If you’re not planning on doing this full time wood cauls are perfect. Cheap, easy to make and no special tools required.

And believe me. If you are going to use a hammer you will have to knock those frets way more than 3 times for every fret. More like 30 (well not really, but you get the picture). I hammered y first couple of necks, but I have switched to the method MzI describes. The ouphth sound of a fret going in place with the press method is so much more satisfying than the old hammering way. Faster and much more accurate and way less job on the frets to get the frets level.

[mammoth guitars]

A light hammer will work but in any case the fret wire should be radiused before installing.

[soapbarstrat]

I recently finished building my own version of StewMac's "Jaws 2". I also make my own radius cauls. It works amazing well. I did a 10"-14" compound radius board. Frets were a pretty tight fit in the slots, which I used to be afraid of, because I wanted to avoid back-bowing the neck. But I know tight frets sound better. In the end, after I did the 10"-14" neck, I tweaked the T-rod ever so slightly to get the fret tops all as level as possible.

My 19" fret leveling bar still had 600 grit gold abrasive from a previous job. I thought what the hell, I can just run that over these new frets to show the high spots. 4 light passes across the board, with 600 grit, I had all the frets perfectly leveled.

From the dust on the sides of the frets, it looked like the 1st fret had a little more milled off the top than the other frets. That fret was .0540" high before the leveling, and .0535" after all the leveling and polishing was done. I usually take .001" - .002" off the fret tops (used to take around .008" off years ago when I was green).

I was amazed, but I'm still quite fed-up with doing fret-work.