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Diy Fretpress


Setch

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I'm surprised you gave it chance to regain karma as I would force reincarnation with a hammer. Do you not have a drill press Setch? It would surprise me if you didn't. I use mine for fret pressing....very cool bit of kit though, especially since it was cheap as free!

Edited by Prostheta
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Nope, no drill press. I have a benchtop milling machine which does all my drilling, but I don't want to use it for fret pressing - too many moving parts which have to remain accurate.

If I get a drill press I might use that, or get a dedicated arbour press (they're very cheap) but I don't have the room at the moment.

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You have a milling machine, but don't make any hardware? Tsk :D

Anyway, cool! I'm going to do a version of the setup recently pubshed in 'Guitarmaker', using toggle clamps (the kind axminster/harbor freight/whatever sell). Advanage there is that you can press and lock the frets in place if you need to (f'r instance) glue down fret overhang on bound fingerboards.

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Got a brand? I keep meaning to replace my drill press (cheap) with a new one, might as well get a milling machine, but most of the ones with decent reach have anti-decent price tags. And then I read pages on doing CNC conversions. And then silly things start happening in my head.

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I've done very little metalworking on the mill, but I've found it perfectly satisfactory for all the wood working I've done on it. The guy who sold my dad the mill said that these are great introductory tools, but if you plan on doing any serious metal working then go for something bigger. Not sure where making bridges comes, but it's probably best served by a bigger mill.

I would expect to spend a while setting any new mill you get - my Dad and I completely dismantled ours, and a Clarke metal working lathe, removing all the anti rust goop which is ladelled onto them for transport. After that they seem to work pretty well, though the jib strips on the latheways need adjusting more often than I'd like. There's no obvious runout on the mill, and I have found it incredibly useful so far.

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There's a local company who sells the X2 (labled as Black and Red), for less than Aminster wants for it, but it's still about 500 euros (a little under). And there are about a million websites on converting them to CNC, from plans to complete retrofit kits, etc.

Maybe once I've hidden away more wood (I've moved almost all of it to its final storage place, and damn it's a lot....), built a few guitars, used the hardware I already have, I'll get myself one...

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First guess wins - I happened to have some the right size, and also I wanted to experiment with machining it using router cutters in my milling machine.

It's actually incredibly tough stuff - it's filled with glassfibre, and can be quite tough to work with. In time I plan to machine away the radiused portion, and cut in a slot to accomodate the stew mac fretting cauls, but for the time being it's working fine.

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  • 2 weeks later...

hi,

do you think wood would be a good material for the pressing piece??

what other materials appart from that you think could be used? i think stew-mac uses a metal the clain softer than the nickel frets, what you guys think??

thanx, bye

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Nope, no drill press. I have a benchtop milling machine which does all my drilling, but I don't want to use it for fret pressing - too many moving parts which have to remain accurate.

If I get a drill press I might use that, or get a dedicated arbour press (they're very cheap) but I don't have the room at the moment.

I'd recommend picking up a cheap ($15-20) arbor press from harbor freight. I brook my drill press (a pretty decent one too) pressing frets in :D

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I was at harbor frieght looking at the arbor press and it didnt have a hole to attach the caul into, has anyone used one and how did you attach it?

You have to keep looking until you find a defective one that has a hole in it. I spent 8 months camped outside the arbor press factory in China hoping to get one with a hole. Trip was all for nothing.

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A "jaws 2" type bar-clamp press wipes out those arbor presses, in my opinion. Main reason is that it will do the whole board on a glue-in or neck-through. I managed to make one that works extremely well, for under $5.00 (But that's because I used discarded parts off a garage door opener and a car part for the tricky parts of it. Not joking, but don't want to reveal my design).

Edited by soapbarstrat
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