Mind Riot

I won't slap you, but in fact you did miss a lot. I explained in my post that I used my Stew Mac precision straightedge to adjust the truss rod with the guitar in the playing position until the neck read straight against it. I then placed the support rods to where they were just touching the back of the neck, and put the guitar and jig back down and removed the strings. I then used the headstock jack and strap to push the neck back until it read straight against the straightedge again, so it was as close as I could get it to the same position it was when it was strung. My mistake in this case was not double checking the clearance of the headstock jack before I pulled the frets, because the jack wouldn't fit under the headstock and I had to reposition the guitar and thus the support rods. So once I could get the jack under there, I had to just push the headstock up to where it read straight against the straightedge and could only use the straightedge as my reference. So my mistake cost me the added precision of making the neck sit back straight on the support rods. Just an oversight that came from it being the first time I had used the jig. As far as the dial calipers, I may add them later at some point. But I feel I should point out that the original iterations of the neck jig didn't have them, and even these days I've seen neck jigs that don't use them. While I agree that they are useful and a good thing to have I don't agree with the mentality that a neck jig is useless or incomplete without them. Just being able to force the neck back straight against a straightedge and support it while the truss rod is tensioned is a very useful thing, and not every luthier uses a neck jig at all or uses one with calipers if they do.

Well, my first ever refret is done. It was an interesting and very informative experience, and I learned a great deal about a lot of things. I documented the process with pictures and text and posted it over on the HC guitar forum, so instead of doing the whole thing again here I thought I'd just post a link to the thread so anyone interested could check it out. It was done on a friend's cheap Epiphone LP Special II that was about thirteen years old. I back cut and hid the tangs on this, and filled the ends with superglue. Here's the link: http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums...d.php?t=1752254 There's certainly some things I would do differently if I had it to do over again, and I made a couple stupid mistakes that I should have known better than to do, but I'm just glad it didn't turn out to be a complete disaster.

He does sell them on ebay, he's also a member here. He's always got a couple for sale in the classifieds here. It seems to work quite well. The wire tends to want to slip sideways. I don't know if that problem is eliminated with the Stew Mac bender, but if I'm careful and I stay on top of it and go slow it comes out fine. And it's only about a third the cost of the SM one.

Oh, I have no intention of doing any work on the TV tray. The drill press I'll be using for installing frets is in the shop, so that's where I'll be working. I also have a very heavy 4x12 cab that I sometimes use as a workbench; it's just on loan to a friend at the moment. I hadn't thought of the Stew Mac jack being so hard to attach anything to. I may end up just cutting a little felt pad to protect the headstock and just putting it in between each time I use it. I was kind of thinking along the same lines of storage on the jig, seeing as how it's so heavy and unwieldy already it's going to make it harder to carry other stuff. I've already got a little freezer bag that I clip to the body end of the spine (where it's still hollow so the clip can grab) that I keep the straps and such in. It'll hold the jack as well, so everything I actually need to use that's directly related to the jig itself will be on there and I can carry it with one hand (for a ways, at least ). I'm already outgrowing my tool box, I think I may need to get a second one sometime soon for all these new refretting tools. But now that you mention it, since I only ran the wood through to right where the body support block starts there's still some space to use. Hmmm... There's a Harbor Freight about an hour drive away from me, but I often go to the town it's in for various reasons (it's the nearest Guitar Center, for example). I might keep an eye out for a cheap arbor press as well, but right now I've got a little idea brewing in my head about modifying a clamp into a fret press like the Jaws II SM sells. I'm glad you think it looks good, it feels solid as a rock and it's certainly almost comically over engineered so it should hold up just fine. I'll be doing my first refret within days (the SM jack is the last part I'm waiting on) so I should have some experiences to share after that. Any last minute refretting advice?

Okay, so my neck jig is pretty much completed. It was an interesting process with a couple mistakes but nothing big. First up, I didn't design this one with the dial indicators so don't worry, I didn't forget them. I might add them later, maybe not. I decided to use a length of rectangular steel tubing for the spine of the jig instead of wood. I would have a hard time finding a good straight solid piece of hardwood locally, and it would cost more than the steel anyway. I originally made this thing with threaded rods for the neck supports, but after I did that I found that they didn't have enough lateral support. I drilled the holes in the steel, cut threads for the rod, and put a wingnut on each rod so it could be tightened down when the rod was at the right height for extra stability. Good idea in theory, but it makes for a lot of screwing and unscrewing whenever you want to adjust something and it's quite difficult to tap threads into steel by hand and keep it perfectly straight on every hole. Here's what I ended up with in the end: The steel is a length of 1 1/2" by 2 1/2" rectangular stock, pretty thick walls. I know they measure that by gauge but I don't know the system, the walls are 1/8" thick on all sides. The body support is made from 3/4" voidless plywood. It's bolted at six points to the spine with inset bolts. There are four body supports I made out of furniture feet with rubberized cork attached to them with contact cement. The feet only have half inch threads, so they're joined to threaded rod extenders with coupling nuts. There are several threaded inserts I put in the plywood so the supports can be moved to accommodate different body types. Each one can be raised to about five inches above the board or dropped flush if the extender rods and nuts are removed. Should ideally be able to handle anything. http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpics/Bodysupports.jpg The body board is supported on both sides by the same threaded inserts and adjustable furniture feet, but this time without the cork. I also threw a couple wingnuts on there to clamp them down for more stability. http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpics/Neckjigfeet.jpg Here are the neck support rods, that can be raised and lowered manually and locked in place. I used 5/16-18 thread wing bolts for this, and drilled and tapped the steel for support. The rods are spaced four inches apart, and start about an inch and half from the body board. I only need four for a 25 1/2" scale guitar neck. http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpic...supportrods.jpg When the issue of lateral support came up, I decided to take a suggestion from soapbarstrat and put it to work. I cut a hardwood 2x4 down to just barely fit inside the steel and hammered it in with a deadblow hammer. The wood runs all the way down to where the body board starts. I drilled and tapped the steel at the end for a 7/16" two inch long bolt to make sure the wood stays in place. It's definitely overkill, I had to hammer for ten minutes just to get the wood in there in the first place, but now it's definitely not moving. Unfortunately, my local hardware store only had four of the wing bolts I needed, so I'll have to go back and get two more later. http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpics/Neckjigend.jpg Here's a close up with one of the rods removed. The rods are made of 3/8" solid steel rod stock, and capped with hard plastic furniture caps. You can see the end support bolt and the wood in the spine that gives support to the rods. http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpic...jigendclose.jpg I threw one of my guitars on there just to see how it all works together. http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpic...guitarwhole.jpg http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpics/Neckjigbody.jpg http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpic...trodsplaced.jpg The only thing I'm missing at this point is the headstock jack, which is coming from Stew Mac and should arrive tomorrow if all goes well. http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpics/Neckjiglong.jpg And if I move the body back just a bit and insert the other two rods, I have just enough room to do basses on the thing as well. All of my refretting tools arrived today, so once that headstock jack gets here I should be getting going on my first refret within the next couple days!

Ah, I feel kind of silly now. It was just the wire slipping out of the groove on the adjustable wheel intermittently. I tightened the radius just a tad and ran the same length of wire through, going slower and just doing a little bit at a time, making sure the tang and crown were always in each groove, and it came out just fine. I should have just practiced it a bit more before posting. It doesn't have a crank, it's one of the benders made by forum member zyonsdream that he sells. Just some bearings bolted to a thick aluminum plate, with one of them being height adjustable for different radii. It seems really well made, and bends smooth as long as the user isn't a retard like me. Soapbarstrat, I also finished my neck jig the other day. I'll post another thread with pictures when I take them. I took your advice and put a length of 2x4 I cut into the steel for more lateral support of the rods. The only thing I'm waiting on is the little turnbuckle jack from Stew Mac for the headstock, it should arrive tomorrow.

I ordered one of Zyons Dreams fret benders a few weeks ago, and I just got my fret wire delivered. I ran a length through the bender as a practice run to see how it works. It bent it fine, but it was tricky to keep the wire perfectly straight as it was being bent. It's a big wire, and it wanted to slip slightly to the side. After I ran the whole length through, it seemed fairly flat but not perfect. As in, the two ends of the wire don't touch which would indicate a perfectly bent wire, but they were only off by a bit less than a centimeter which seems to me to indicate a slight twist. I'm just curious if this is fairly normal or acceptable, as in the fret slot will compensate for such a slight twist, or will I get better with more practice and I did it wrong. Do you guys get wire that's perfect and not even slightly twisted when you use your fret benders?

I wouldn't count on me being aware of all that much, I'm just starting out. I mean, I've read Hiscock's book cover to cover more times than I can count, and the same with Erlewine's book, in particular the fretting section. I've read everything I can find on here and anywhere else I can find things on the web, but it's all just book knowledge. I'm just taking my first step into practical application when it comes to refretting. So I hope these tools I've chosen will be enough for me to do the job properly. I picked the .023" fret saw so that if I ran across slots that wouldn't fit the wire I could carefully widen the slots to fit the tang instead of having to find a bunch of different kinds of wire. As I said, I won't be working on any vintage instruments; the stuff I'll be doing won't have it's value hurt by having the slots widened. An old gentleman friend of mine has a '66 Gretsch Country Gentleman worth about eight grand that he wants me to work on, and I told him I would not touch that instrument. I told him if he wanted I would look around and try to find someone qualified, but that's it.

Nuts! I agree with your points though. Particularly on cheaper import instruments, even aside from climatic problems there has to be cost cutting going on with the wood. I doubt they maintain their dryness levels as strictly, and they certainly aren't as picky about their wood selection. I guess I'll start with the matching saw from SM, and if I run across a need to do some compression fretting later I guess I'll have to get into some more tools for tang expansion and probably some more saw sizes as well. Thus far, I've got three guitars in line for a refret. The first is my friend's, and the frets on that thing are almost gone. The other two are mine, one of which has been the brunt of my fret leveling experiments and so has low frets and the other I just want to try out a flatter radius on it to see what it's like. All three of them are able to be adjusted straight with their truss rods, so I suppose I'll be okay with using matching wire and saw for these three to start with.

Been over two months since the first post, I guess nobody around here's used it much?

I really do appreciate your input, but I don't quite understand from your response what I should do. Is it likely that I'll need to get into compression fretting on modern necks? Should I be using a fret slot saw that is smaller than the fret tang? It just seemed logical to me to get their saw since it matches their fret wire, if the neck doesn't present with any other problems like you mentioned. Should I get a different saw?

Say, I had a little question. I was going to get Stew Mac's regular fret saw to make sure the slot width and depth is right. It's cut matches their fret wire tang width, and their little refret saws don't. So I'm just wondering if this is a sound idea. I'm not going to be working on any vintage instruments, all the stuff I'll be doing will be on modern guitars with working truss rods, so am I right in assuming that I shouldn't need to be doing any compression fretting? Will just setting things up to where the slot width matches the tang width work on an average neck with a working truss rod?

It is a sturdy free standing press, but I'll chop a couple 2x4's and wedge them under the table to be sure. Thanks for the tip!

I've been saving up some spare dough to get some tools to get into refretting for a while now, and it looks like I'll be making a Stew Mac order within a few days. Yippee! I'm very interested in trying out SS fret wire, but I think I'll hold off on that for a little while and get started on the traditional 18% stuff. A friend of mine has agreed to let me cut my teeth on his cheap, fifteen year old Epiphone LP Special. Thus far on my list for Stew Mac, I have: Fret press caul with inserts Extra 14" and 20" inserts to round out the set Neck support caul Fret end nippers Fret saw with depth stop (I figure it would work best for making sure the fret slots are the right width and depth for the Stew Mac wire I'll be using, and I won't be working on any bound boards to start with) Two types of jumbo wire, a bulk tube of the big stuff for my projects and 6 feet of the medium jumbo for my friend as he likes them wide and a little lower I have access to a very sturdy free standing drill press I'll be using to press the frets in. I'll be picking up a plastic faced hammer locally, Stew Mac is out of theirs. I'm also picking up a few nut blanks, a slightly bigger nut file I've been wanting, and the string spacing rule. Preslotted nuts have worked for me so far, but I'd like to try making one for real. It'll be about $240 all told, which for me is a lot. I'm not a kid (though my excitement may make me sound like one in this post), I'm just poor. I already own a set of radius blocks, an 18" precision straight edge, fret leveling and recrowning tools, some nut files and feeler gauges and such, and some other tools. I've been doing fret levels and nuts for a bit under a year now, but it's time to take the next step. So hopefully I'll be posting pretty soon about my first refret and how it went! Wahoo!

Just snagged one of the aluminum ones.

Yes, I went and read it between my last post and this one. It was very entertaining. I noticed in that thread that you said you regularly set action on the high E at about 1/32". I can only do that if I don't bend more than a semitone in the upper register, even with a 14" radius. I haven't built my neck jig yet, but perhaps once it's done and I get some more practice my fret work will allow that kind of setup. I'm not really set on playing with that kind of action, but it would be a feather in my cap when my fret work got good enough to allow it. I guess part of what prompted me to start the thread is that I was just wondering if the setup numbers I was getting indicated problems with my fret work. But for someone like me, who hits hard and bends far, it seems like fairly normal real world numbers (for people who aren't yet capable of your remarkable tolerances) based on what I've read, which makes me feel better. It's not so much that I need or want lower action, but it's the only practical litmus test I know of for the quality of my fret work. Based on what I've read, my results seem fairly normal and acceptable, but with room for improvement and more precision, which is fine with me.

From how this kind of topic usually goes, yeah, pretty much the wrong forum. Better suited for a wrestling forum. Heh Okay, I'll search around and see what I can find, I guess I probably should have just done that to start. Can I assume that there's some good information on the subject to be found amid the carnage? Or is it just something people don't talk about?

Did I post this in the wrong forum or something?

Yes, that all makes sense. It sounded possible on the surface, but if someone isn't using glue and press fitting their frets it seems there's too much to consider for each fret's proper seating for it to be very reliable.

For those of us that like to set their guitars up with low action, what do you consider to be "low" when making these kinds of adjustments? And what sort of mitigating factors do you run into that can change how you would set a guitar up? I've only been doing fret work for a bit less than a year now. I've done about ten or so fret levels, using a few different methods, either on my own or some friends' guitars, all of them cheaper instruments. Thus far all have been satisfactory to good, at least as far as I can tell. Truth be told, I'm not the pickiest when it comes to action being really low myself, but I sort of have become that way as a result of doing more work on guitars. So I'm curious as to what people who are really experienced, and who build guitars from scratch to their own specs, have to say. I'm a rock and metal player, but not shred. I like to bend, I hit the guitar hard. I know that each person's touch comes into play when setting things up. Someone with more finesse would probably be able to get lower action than me, and I'm sure there are also harder pickers out there as well. Thus far on my guitars I've only been able to get things so low with my playing style. I've leveled in the paths of the strings, creating a slight compound radius on the fret tops. On one of my guitars, which has about a 13" radius or so, I can only get the action to just a hair above 3/64" on the high E without fretting out on a whole step bend at the fifteenth fret or so. If I don't bend, I can set it lower. The wound strings are just above 4/64". On another guitar which has a 9 1/2" radius that flattens out to about a 12" due to the compound leveling, I have to set the high E at 4/64" to get whole step bends without fretting out. If I don't bend at all, I can set the action on this particular guitar to about 1/32" on the high strings and it will play cleanly. I'm not particularly averse to having the action set this way, but I've heard of people getting it lower and I'm wondering what the X-factor in this is. Are people with super low action not big benders? Are they using guitars with very flat radii, like 16"? Or is my fret work not quite up to snuff and I should be able to get things lower as my fret work improves? All thoughts welcome, and thanks for sharing.

Dang it! I saw someone posted and it got me all excited.

So I was casually reading my copy of the Guitar Player Repair Guide and in the section on refretting I noticed Mr. Erlewine mentioning using radius blocks to press in frets when using glue. He noted that if you were using wooden radius blocks then it would be wise to put some thin sheet steel over the radiused surface to keep the frets from damaging them. Of course, this would only work on a single radius board unless you had short blocks. Even though he was only talking about doing this on glue in fret jobs (where the barbs had been shaved down a tad and less force was needed to press them into the slots) I was wondering if anyone had ever tried this for pressing in frets normally, without altering the tang or using glue. It would seem to me that if you put sheet steel over the radiused surface to protect it, had a good form fitting caul for the back of the neck (such as Stew Mac's neck support caul), and had some good strong clamps you could potentially press frets in using this method. Perhaps even many frets at once, if you were using say an eight inch block. Protect the caul and the top of the radius block with some maple, overbend the frets and tap the ends into place, then clamp 'em down with three or four good strong clamps. It seems like it would work, but I have yet to do a refret (I'm saving for some tools and have done several fret levels). It also seems like it would make for pretty even fret heights, if they're all being pressed in under a good block. Is there issues with this idea that I don't see? I'm not necessarily thinking of trying it, but it seems like it would work. Please educate me, whether it's a sound notion or a completely harebrained moronic scheme.

Ah, okay, that makes sense. Well, I don't know when I'll get around to building this thing, but I'm not very good at waiting when I've got the parts and I'm excited about the project so it probably won't be very long. I spent a little more time with the guitar I leveled using the Turner levelers last night doing some more setup work, and it's now setup with the lowest, smoothest action I have thus far been able to achieve on any of the guitars I've leveled. High E can be set at about 2.5/64" without buzzing, but you can't quite get a whole step bend out of it on the high frets without it choking (it's a 9.5" radius, and with the conical leveling, it flattens out to about a 12" at the body end). I set it up at 3/64" on the high E, with the B and G the same and all the wound strings at 4/64". I can get most of them lower, but this feels comfortable when I dig in and spank it hard. I'm very pleased, and I think I'll definitely be leveling frets this way again.

I might be being thick, but why would I want to do that? Oh, and what did you all think of the fret job?

Well, I went and made some of the Turner Levelers, as well as a surrogate nut to give the strings a bit more clearance since the angle steel I was using is pretty thick. I took pictures and wrote up my experiences and posted the thread over on the HC Electric Guitar forum, so rather than typing the whole thing up again here I thought I'd just post a link so everybody can see it. http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums...d.php?t=1730105 It worked pretty darn well actually. Mr. Turner's on to something, methinks. I'm still planning on building a neck jig and getting into refrets and such, and bought a five foot length of thick walled 1 1/2" by 2 1/2" rectangular steel stock to use for the spine. But this fret leveling method really seems to work pretty well, and all it cost me was a dollar in smaller steel for the surrogate nut (I didn't have any of the smaller angle steel) and a little time in the shop cutting the scrap steel and cleaning it up and making sure it was flat for the levelers.