Do I need to bend frets?

[PRSpoggers]

Can't I technically just glue and hammer them in? I really don't see the reason to go and spend almost 200 dollars at stew mac for a fret bender when I probably don't even have to. If I do however, I have radiusing blocks, so can't I use those, and put the fretwire against those and shape tap them to the desired radius? Thanks

[curtisa]

They need to be bent before insertion, otherwise the ends will have a tendency to pop up out of the slots. Hammering and glue by themselves will not hold a straight fret in a curved form for long. If anything, the common approach is to slightly over-bend them so that the middle of the arch sits higher than the fretboard, so that when they're hammered/pressed in the fret tangs are forced sideways along the length of the fret into the wood giving them better grip.

 

3 hours ago, PRSpoggers said:

I really don't see the reason to go and spend almost 200 dollars at stew mac for a fret bender

So buy your fret wire pre-cut and pre-bent. Stewmac sells packs of them  in a few different radii for less than a tenth of the cost of the bender.

[Bizman62]

The frets should be bent to a tighter radius than the fretboard to keep the ends tight in the slots. When you hammer the ends in first the studs in the tang make sideways grooves inside the fret slot so that when the fret is properly seated there's solid wood above the studs at the ends of the fret.

[Bizman62]

7 hours ago, PRSpoggers said:

I really don't see the reason to go and spend almost 200 dollars at stew mac for a fret bender

You can do one by yourself as shown in the thread of self built tools. I was going to build one but then I found this : https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001081480136.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.65d44c4dQ02hrh

[ScottR]

Fret wire from LMii (Luthier's Mercantile) ships in a coil that's 12 inches in diameter. That happens to be a perfect radius to be pre-bent to for my fretboards. I build a bender, but only used it for one build, and just continue to get me wire from LMii.

SR