The Hub

Let me start with this; I'm trying to find the root cause of difficult fret wire installation of two different SM fret wires. I've spent a lot of time gathering dimensions and experimenting with techniques wich could cause the problem. I enlisted the help of a colleague who arrived at a similar poor performance. His solution was to glue the fret ends/ beat the frets in. My "rather" is to find the root cause so I don't have to go thr…

Hi There, I've seen a number of jigs, Some seem like they might work with specific size frets but we all know that even same sized frets have some variances depending batch and where on the line it came off the spool. No matter how i do it I seem to scrape the bottom of the fret trying to make it perfectly flush. I've considered using small rotary round burr or cylinder and only touching the tang so if it does go to deep its…

Well, I am pulling my hair out here... just did a compression fret job on a 2017 D18 Authentic 1939. Neck had severe excess relief, so I pulled the frets, planed the board flat, and got to work....done this a handfull of times, so I wasnt expecting anything out of the ordinary...... I got a handful of frets in, checked my relief by stringing up the guitar, and decided I need to keep pushing, so I got a full set of frets in and som…

Hey lads I'm in a bit of an indecisive spot with a 70's yamaha acoustic refret. Pulled the original frets and the tang is .018" with no barbs just divots pressed into the lower edge. The slot is measuring .018". Struggled to find any suitable sized fretwire in stock in the UK that match what the customer wants that'll fit in the slot. Sintoms looked ideal but couldn't find any, so went with something with 0.20 tang and they're not pressi…

Santa heard I had a challenging year so he got me a 3d printer for Christmas. I’ve been printing like crazy, learning the machine. This has resulted in a bunch of tools that either don’t work for me, were attempts at mixing colors, or have very minor printing blemishes. Two lots up for grabs to anyone in the US who wants either. I’ll mail to you for free. First one to claim each gets it :) First lot has parametric nut and saddle sanders…

Hello everyone, I use a Stewmac japanese fretsaw (which produces .023" wide fretslots, matching the width of the tang of stewmac wire) to recut my slots on refrets. The saw does a good job making the slots deeper, but struggles to make them wider and binds like crazy throughout the process. I think that is due to it not having enough (or any) set, so in theory it only cut downwards and does a poor job removing material from the slot wall…

Is there a Pneumatic Fret Tang Nipper out there or did anybody ever combined a Tang Nipper with a pneumatic Plier? Or maybe it is possible to take the Stewmac Tang Nipper (i like the new version) and modify it? I always make 20-40 Sets of frets ready so i can make a lot of fretboards ready in one day. But after a while my hand really hurts. Thank you

Hi everyone, I am getting closer to finalising the specs for the first production run of the Untangler Pro. The Untangler Pro is made of stainless steel, and it is designed to clean up the underside of fret?s overhangs after clipping away the tang. It works with a Dremel or similar tool and a cutting wheel. The order for the parts needed for the first run will most likely go out next week, so if you want one, now is the time. You can mess…

61 year old Stella Harmony with brass frets. Fret board is poplar. It needs refretting and I want to try doing it myself given the cost of the guitar was $70 bucks, hiring a pro will cost way more. Any recommendations on Fret wire? I can't find Fret wire that is an exact match. Current frets are 1 mm wide, a hair over 1 mm high and the tang looks to be 2.5 mm deep. Has anyone regretted one of these guitars?

Hey everyone, I’m working on a 70’s d-35 and while refreting it have run into an issue of extremely narrow fret slots. They are a tight fit with a 16 thou feeler gauge. I think that even thinning out fret wire with the barber won’t be enough as the pre barb tang thickness is around 20 thou. What bits do you guys like to use to clean/size fret slots? Thanks!