$27.99 dollar home made Fret Press

[J M Fahey]

Looks cool !!
I can also think about 10348 useful tasks which can be made with that press.
Good buy.

[Slobrain]

Here are some pics of that neck you see me with on the first post pressing frets in that neck. It came out nice. I also installed a new bone nut too. The humbuckers are some out of a Ibanez prestege. Logo nitro lacqured in too. Suprisingly its almost a 10 inch radius and the sting action is pretty low. I didn't roll this fingerboard edges but I should have...

Cheers

[RobbieC]

Nice job. Does that center bolt in the arbor head allow you to lock it for gluing frets?

[Slobrain]

Nice job. Does that center bolt in the arbor head allow you to lock it for gluing frets?

Well, there are two center bolts, what I do is to hold down the press lever and then tighten the bottom bolt down with a nut driver. Then I tilt the press back to wick CA (thin super glue) in on the part of the fret sticking out with maybe three drops of glue. I'll let that set for a while then move on to the next fret. Or I will press all the frets and then clamp a radius block to the fretboard and glue 6 frets at a time which will get the process done much faster.

One VERY important factor in doing refrets are to use a notched straight edge and make sure the fingerboard is dead level from one end to the other and across the fretboard, side to side. That is a key to getting a constant refret without taking too much off the new frets. Fretboard preparation is a key factor to do, if not then your refret will not come out good. Look at Youtube, they have many videos of people refretting and this will give you a good idea on many ways to do a refret.

The one thing I do to my necks is to change the fretboard radius from 9.5 to either 12 or 14. I do this because I like a flatter feel on my strat necks. I never was really too happy with a 9.5 FB radius.


One a side note, I just started using the Jescar fretwire and like this wire, very well made. I'm trying to see if Jescar will build a taller fret and waiting to see if they will and the cost. Dunlop 6000 is a good fretwire but the quality is not as consistent as the Jescar fretwire. But the Dunlop wire is still really good.

[RobbieC]

Thanks for the tips!

I'm currently re-fretting a friend's Silvertone 1457. It had an "s-shape"...the notched straightedge touched at the 1st, 5-7th, and all frets from 14 upward. There was a substantial gap elsewhere so I knew that I couldn't just level the frets. I checked it 2-3 times, took a deep breath, pulled the frets, cross-hatched the fretboard with a white pencil, and using an 16" precision aluminum fingerboard leveler set to work. It was my first time (sigh).

After a few strokes the erased the cross-hatches confirmed my analysis. This did a pretty good job so I blew off the work, cleaned it with naptha, and let it sit overnight. The next morning I checked it with fresh eyes and a 18" StewMac straightedge and realized that the kick-up at frets 1-3 and 14-22 was much worse than I had thought. So, I started again and concentrated on these areas using fresh cross-hatching. I did this a few times before giving the whole thing a new leveling. I put in some fallaway, hit it with 220 and 320 using a 14" radius block, checked it with the straightedge and radius gauges and golly gee it's darn near perfect. It's rewarding to see that my evaluation was correct and my skill-set adequate. Now I'm waiting for some Dunlop 6140 frets to arrive. Can't wait to do some hammering!

Back to the arbor press...I'm not much of a machinist and I'm curious how you drilled a hole centered, square, & plumb with the arbor to insert the caul. I have a drill press but no accessory table or vise but can acquire them. Taking it to the machine shop would probably be too expensive to be cost effective. I'd love to have a mini mill/drill but, alas, not anytime soon. I think I'm going to try to find some strong material and make a fret-pressing caul then order the brass inserts from StewMac. A Brit made one using "glass-filled nylon" which I'm guessing is like glass epoxy but using a nylon substrate. Unfortunately, a 2.5" x 7" x 7" piece is $49 on eBay (!). Geez...maybe oak laminated perpendicular to the slot?

[John_H]

I've had the same press for years. They're very well suited for fretwork. I made my own cauls out of some rosewood.

[RobbieC]

Ah...way to think out of the box! The caul doesn't necessarily need to be dangling from the arbor as long as you center the arbor over the caul. Cool!

[Slobrain]

Hey Robbie,

I took the shaft out of the arbor press and locked in place with a vice, then I tapped a small hole on the center of the shaft with small punch, then using a cordless drill I drilled the hole carefully. It wasn't hard to do at all. Then drilling the smaller side hole and using a tap I threaded it and use an Allen screw to lock the caul in. I don't tighten the caul fully, I leave it a slight bit loose so I can swivel the caul if needed. It works really well. I don't even bolt the press down as it doesn't take much pressure to seat a fret. I do have to be careful when pressing, one hand holds the fret press, the other pulls the lever to seat the fret.
I did spend a few bucks at Stew Mac to get a fret saw to deepen the slots after I re-level a fretboard. The other problem I run into is sometimes the original fret slots are a bit wider than the new fret tang so I have to put small slight crimps into the tang to seat in the fretboard and stay put. Stew Mac sells a fret tang crimper but I use a tool that puts a small slight crimp notch, I do this maybe six times across the fret tang in the middle to help with those loose fret slots.

I got my notched straight edge of eBay for I think about $25.00 with shipping. It's excellent, here is the link

GUITAR NECK STRAIGHT EDGE (Notched) LUTHIERS TOOL | eBay

I bought a diamond crowning tool from EBay too and the wood radius blocks are from EBay and Stew Mac.

It does take getting some tools from Stew Mac but others off EBay or I made my fretboard files, three total, one removing metal fast, the second one is a lighter file and the last smaller one it a real light file to do touch up fret edge metal removal.
All in all it just takes practice and careful planning. I used to think it was hard to do now it’s just time consuming. But fun too.

Hey John, That’s a cool setup.