Fretwork

[pmads]

I am building my first bass and am having a problem with a couple of frets seating properly. They will not seat on the outer edge of the fretboard. I used a fretsaw that matches the tang width, but it appears that the kerf is slightly wider at the outer edge, thus preventing the fret tang from wedging in. Can anyone help me with this problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[killemall8]

are you pressing or hammering frets in? if pressing, you could put some ca glue in the slot, and then press and hold until it dries, and holds the fret down.

[erikbojerik]

I actually prefer to glue frets in with Titebond. Unless you use the gel (which is hard to get down into the slot), CA is not a great gap-filler because it shrinks a LOT when drying. And any squeeze-out is easily cleaned up with a wet paper towel.

[j. pierce]

Erik: Does titebond actually hold metal? (I've heard enough people mention using titebond in fretting that I'm sure it does something, I just don't know if I understand it right.)

pmads: something like this might help:

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Fretting_suppl...FretFitter.html

Stew Mac also used to sell a (less expensive, if I remember) tool that did just one thing at a time. (Separate tools for crimping and mashing)

Basically, expanding the fret tangs a little wider so they grip the wood a bit better. I'm sure you could get something similar elsewhere.

Frank Ford has a bit on his website about making his own similar tool:

http://frets.com/FRETSPages/Luthier/Tools/...texpander1.html

Or you could just see if you can't get some wire with a bit wider tang, or try and adjust the tang on the bits you have manually. Or go the glue route, that seems good as well from the advice others have posted about similar problems. Could also fill the fret slot with veneer and resaw, I suppose.

Just throwing things out there.

Did you slot the board after tapering it? I would taper the board second, as sometimes it's easy to accidently get exactly what you had occuring, the slot widening towards the ends - if you taper the board afterwards, hopefully all that can get cut off!

[soapbarstrat]

I guess this is a perfect example of a case where over-radiusing the frets helps keep the ends down.

Also a perfect example of why when I get a request along the lines of " Can you re-fret a neck I made from scratch ?" I reply that I'm stranded on Antartica. Hope you don't take that as a diss, cause we've all done stuff along those lines.

[pmads]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I will give these a try and see if I can reslove the problem. Once again, thanks.