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My New Fretpress


Setch

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Looks like a real nice job.

I found this a bit funny : "...and bolted in a straight replacement, using M6 nylox nuts and a section of .25″ steel cut from a discarded hydraulic door closer arm".

Because on my DIY version of "Jaws 2" , I used pieces of steel taken from a discarded garage door opener to make my own bottom Jaw of the clamp.

Maybe you share my curse of always looking at things and thinking "what can I take off of that, to build me something else".

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Anyone who knows me will testify that I share that curse.

It's genetic. When my grandfather died, we found a tobacco tin in his shed, neatly labelled 'Bits of string too short to be useful'. Sadly, my day job provides me with a near endless supply of 'treasure' which will come in handy one day.

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Very nice job.

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Anyone who knows me will testify that I share that curse.

It's genetic. When my grandfather died, we found a tobacco tin in his shed, neatly labelled 'Bits of string too short to be useful'. Sadly, my day job provides me with a near endless supply of 'treasure' which will come in handy one day.

It's all the more disturbing when you find tins labelled "bits of string too long to be useful" :-\

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Very cool contraption. Nice to see it works well also. Looks like the inserts fit well into the caul. Should be a great help when gluing in frets also huh? Being able to lock it there in place while it dries for a bit. Very neat diy tool as always. Thanks for sharing. Jason

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I'm also interested to try something described by Mario Proulx on MIMF and OLF - he says that he's found it beneficial to keep frets clamped for a few minutes after pressing each one, it helps them 'set' in place better by holding them stable whilst the wood is compressed by the barbs.

I plan to cut and de-tang each fret individually when fretting, whilst the previous fret stays clamped down in the press.

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Or another way to put it (at least how I understand it), is you press the fret in, and the little "diamonds" mash endgrain wood, but if you keep the fret held down in place, some of that mashed end grain above the diamonds can spring back out a tiny bit, helping to hold the fret down a little better, even without glue.

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I agree, perhaps cynically. Compressed wood fibres maintain energy which will be released in the path of least resistance. A barb generally pushes it's way through wood and creates a vertical slot (ho ho ho) creating lines of compressed fibre along it's path down that slot. Releasing a fret "early" perhaps allows any springback the fret has to move it's way back up through those paths. Holding them down at their lowest point allows those paths to close whilst the fret is in radius.

I think it's overkill and would rather digest beer after a good session of fummering the hackers in with my het frammer. Never experienced problems in that respect. If you don't mind losing a little off some frets during a levelling and setup, then fine. If you want to pursue perfection of technique to diminishing returns (IMO) then the above might be relevant, perhaps.

Edited by Prostheta
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