When to Fret

[woodrat]

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"Originally Posted on:Tue Dec 08, 2009 4:39 pm"

I am intrigued to know at what stage of their build people do all or part of their fretting and why their method works for them. So far I have done it all before I glue FB to the neck as well as after I have glued it to the FB. On my latest build I am doing semi-hemispherical fret ends for the first time and I am going to level and dress after I have attached the neck to the body although all the frets are installed and the semi hemis are done.
....a penny for your collective thoughts...

John

[Nick]

I've done it many ways John, frets after finish, frets after gluing FB on but I do almost everything before gluing on now (including binding), final leveling & dress after paints been on and buffed and strings have been on for a couple of weeks, just to let everything 'settle'. I also use the Erlewine neck jig (where everythings levelled with the neck under string tension simulation) to level, if you can afford it or a copy of it, it's a brillant way to level the frets under playing conditions Guaranteed to eliminate any chance of fret buzz or dressing the odd fret after.

[Kim]

Like Nick I fret before the board goes on and then level under string tension with the super duper Rick Turner neck jig. Work's similar to Dan's but is much better suited to my budget. It comprises of 1/2" aluminum angle cut to lengths as required with abrasive glued to one side of the angle. You adjust the truss rod to level the neck and remove the relief, feed the angle under the strings while still in tension and level the frets in situ. When your done, reintroduce a little relief and see how it plays. If ur happy, drop the strings, crown and polish the frets and your done.

Cheers

Kim
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[Allen]

I always fret before the fret board gets glued on. Use the arbor press so they are well seated. I've found that doing this I have very little to dress after the fret board is glued onto the neck.

[Nick]

Ooops, forgot that. I too press my frets in and on Ebony boards (which is all I seem to be using recently) I whip a bit off the tangs too with the Fret Barber. Reduces the backbow on the board to about 0.5-1mm along it's length, bugger all stress on it (or on the neck) when it's glued on.

[woodrat]

Kim wrote:

Like Nick I fret before the board goes on and then level under string tension with the super duper Rick Turner neck jig. Work's similar to Dan's but is much better suited to my budget. It comprises of 1/2" aluminum angle cut to lengths as required with abrasive glued to one side of the angle. You adjust the truss rod to level the neck and remove the relief, feed the angle under the strings while still in tension and level the frets in situ. When your done, reintroduce a little relief and see how it plays. If ur happy, drop the strings, crown and polish the frets and your done.

Cheers

Kim

Kim that is a new approach and one that I had not heard of before. I would like to try it and it fits my budget too. Do you have any pics of you doing the process?

John

[Hesh1956]

The last time I fretted a guitar it was done in very much the traditional manner meaning that the frets were not installed until after the guitar was finished and the neck was attached. This was the first time I ever did it this way and included pressing the frets onto the neck with the Stew-Mac Jaws presses and hammering the frets onto the fret board extension using a Taylor fret buck.

Prior to this I had tried it several ways including fretting the board off the neck and then attaching the board.

My results using the traditional method were the best that I had obtained however it is more complicated in a number of ways. For example fretting on a newly finished guitar can make one, certainly me...., a little nervous.... Next I don't own a fret buck, they are expensive, and this part of the operation was pretty scary to me since I had never used a fret buck before.

Anyway I am sure that great results can be achieved a number of ways here but for me the traditional method is currently the only way that I can be absolutely sure that my fret board is level, will stay level, prior to fretting. YMMV

[digidoc1010]

For those of you who are fretting prior to attaching the FB to the neck, does this introduce any bow into the FB or does it remain flat?

Thanks.
Dan

[Nick]

digidoc1010 wrote:

For those of you who are fretting prior to attaching the FB to the neck, does this introduce any bow into the FB or does it remain flat?

Thanks.
Dan

I've found it does introduce bow into the board, you have a thin section of wood under the fret and a metal tang with barbs wider than the slot so there's bound to be some bow introduced. Where there isn't much 'give' in the wood around the tang (dense woods such as Ebony) I like to use the Fret Barber, as I mentioned in my earlier post, this reduces the force the tang imparts on the sides of the slot and hence backbow. I've only employed this tool on my last few builds but haven't had a fret loosen on me yet.

[Hesh1956]

Dan I did some tests that may be helpful here....

In my experience too, like Nick's, fretting the board off the neck does indeed introduce some back bow.

One of the experiments that I did some years back and I may be able to find my pics was to measure if pressing frets introduced less back bow than hammering frets. My results were that at least in my case pressing frets produced roughly 1/2 the back bow of hammered frets. Realize too that there are a lot of variables here such as how efficient the idiot holding the hammer is/was..... Anyway though I found that if back bow is your enemy press your frets and nix half of it from the get go.

Also Mario P. wrote a great article that was in guitar maker mag several years ago where he detailed his method for fretting the boards off the neck using a two station, shop made/Mario designed press. In the article iirc Mario will prop the fretted board ends up and weight the center kind of producing a reverse back bow and leave it for some time in an effort to counter the back bow.

Mario claims and I believe him to only need very little attention to fret leveling after fretting as described in his article. What is really the point in my read of Mario's technique is that he has a great handle on process management and I believe that he has taken the technique further since the article but I am not aware of the details.

Anyway all of these things are things that you can do to reduce back bow. Where back bow can be the very worst is of course where the frets are more numerous and closer together such as the fret board extension. This is an area where anything that can reduce back bow is a good idea.

[Allen]

see very little back bow with pressing them in. And when I put the fretted board on a flat surface it takes only light finger pressure to get it to lay flat.

[Nick]

Then, of course, there was the Fender system some years back of pulling the frets in from the side so the tangs cut a slot. I believe (& I could be wrong, I've been known to be in the past ) this was only employed on their maple necks.

[digidoc1010]

Nick, Hesh, and Allen, many thanks for your responses to my question.

Allen, in your experience when you glue the FB to the neck, does the back bow disappear or is it still present?

Hesh, I am an admirer of Mario's methods so I always pay attention when his name is mentioned. That's an intriguing idea to use weights to reverse the back bow. I have traditionally fretted with the FB glued to the neck but before I attach the neck to the body. Just as you indicated, I always get back bow of the FB extension.

Dan

[jeffhigh]

I'm still hammerin' and sawing slots by hand.
Fretting the board before installation
Last one with the new stewmac Japanese style saw, Allied fretwire and ebony board had zero backbow

[Allen]

Back bow disappears.

I use the long alloy radius beam from Stew Mac as my glue up caul. It's dead flat but has the fret board radius that I put on my board.

I put some wax paper down first on the caul. Then fret board with epoxy glue, then neck. Clamp together, then let sit overnight.

I also use CF reinforcement that are inlet into the fret board as well as the neck and extend all the way to the end of the fret board so the extension is very stiff.

[digidoc1010]

Allen,

What impact do you think the CF rods play in helping prevent back bow? Is your experience the same in necks and FB without CF rods?

Thanks,
Dan

[Allen]

This is the final re-constructed message of this topic posted by the ANZLF help team.

I'm not sure about any effect on back bow. The CF rods are not installed prior to fretting. I've cut the channels for them in the fret board and the neck so that everything sits nice and snug. I fret the board and when it come time to glue the two together, the epoxy goes on and the itms mesh together.

The primary reason that I use them on the adjustable necks is for the support to the fret board overhang on the body. Secondly is stabilisation of the entire neck and a bit of insurance. Does it work for the secondary purpose? Well that's only conjecture on my part, as I don't have a long track record with them. It does make the fret board overhang very stiff and stable however, so I surmise that it may do the same for the rest of the neck.

I noticed on necks that I didn't install CF rods in that I had some areas of the fret board that produced notes that weren't as strong. Rather muted. These were some of my earlier guitars. I've not noticed this after I always installed the CF rods, though it could be entirely attributed to building a better box. I'm certainly no expert on this, and of course there have been countless instruments built without CF reinforcements that undoubtedly sound and play better than I could hope to produce.