When it comes to installing frets each luthier has his or her own preferences on methods and tools to use. However, If you haven’t built your first guitar yet the conflicting information from various sources can be very confusing. It doesn’t have to be complicated though, and in this article, my goal is to look at two of the main tools I use to install frets and their respective strengths and weaknesses. For an in-depth step by step demonstrate of my personal methods, as well as an explanation on why I choose to use my current methods and the thinking behind my approach, check out my guitar making video course: Fretwork Mastery Part 1.

Just wondering what the latest is for filling fret slot ends on instruments with unbound fingerboards. In the past I've packed them with ebony dust and then used touches of CA glue. I once also used one of those waxy crayon things that you can buy for 'repairing' dings in furniture. That's still going strong after nearly 20 years on my first. As you can see, there’s a little gap in the wood at each end of the fret slot now. When we sanded the fretboard down while doing the refret, we made sure to save the rosewood dust. This (and some super glue) is what we’ll use to refill the holes.

Guitar Fret Installation Tools

Here in this article I will be showing and discussing the two main tools I use for installing the fret wire into the fingerboards of my guitars. Although there are several tools involved in the process, I’ll be focusing here on just on the two main tools which are the Fret Press and the Dead Blow Fret hammer.

When installing frets, the goal is to get the fret wire seated as tightly and solidly as possible for the easiest fret crowning and setup work and ultimately the best sound, playability, and long-term stability from the guitar. The fret work is one of the most important parts of your guitar and has to look and feel good to the player. Most

Most luthiers prefer one type of fret installation or the other, they will opt for a fret press method or a hammer-in method, and there are definitely some advantages to each. Personally, I like to use a little of both to make kind of a hybrid approach. To understand this a little better and maybe even help you get some ideas on which is best for you, let’s take a look at the challenges/requirements of fret installation and then look at each tool separately and their respective benefits that we can use to our advantage in getting our frets better seated and improving our guitars.

Fret Press VS Hammer-In Guitar Fretting

To get the fret wire into the fret slot we have to apply pressure in some way. We can hit it with something, or we can force it in with a press. ( we could also make the slot wider so the fret wire can just be glued and clamped in, but that is outside the scope of this article) Each method has its own unique advantages and disadvantages, so let’s break it down to get a better idea of which one might work better for you. Remember, there isn’t a right or wrong way. It’s just a matter of experimenting to find the way that fits you and your style the best, and gives you the best results for your specific applications and your guitars.

Hammer In Fretting

Most people start out the guitar building journey with just a simple hammer for fretting their guitars. It does require some experience to get the technique right, but in a short while it can be mastered if an analytical approach is taken. The big problem with this method is that the force of the hammer blow can cause the fret ends to spring up and keep them from seating properly. A specialized dead-blow fret hammer can really help.

Pros

• Relatively inexpensive to get a basic hammer
• Easy to use out over the guitar body
• Works great for refret jobs and on finished guitars

Cons

• If not done properly fret ends often spring up
• Very loud (hearing protection is a must)
• Nerve wracking to bang on a delicate, finished guitar

Guitar Fret Press

A fret press can take on several forms and be a more elaborate jigged system, or just a simple device that can be used with a drill press (the latter is what I use). While this can require a little more setup, in it’s simplest form it’s still not very expensive and in my opinion can be very helpful especially to someone who hasn’t had a lot of experience perfecting their hammer technique. The great thing about using a fret press is that it holds the fret at the proper radius while being forced into place stabilizing the fret ends among other benefits.

Pros

• More even fret installation(ends don’t spring)
• Faster installation
• Quite (no banging)

Cons

• Most expensive than just a hammer
• Harder to do over the guitar body or on a finished neck (but possible)
• Doesn’t compensate for slight variations in fingerboard radius.

Final Thoughts

If you have a super tight budget then you can just use the hammer and you’ll be just fine. My advice is to slot some scrap wood and with some extra wire, practice hammering in the frets to see how different approaches affect the final outcome such as starting in the center of the wire and working toward the ends or starting at one end and working toward the other.

If you can though, using a fret press is really great, and can produce great results and even speed up your workflow ( and to me it’s kind of fun too). I personally use both tools, as I demonstrate in my guitar fretting course. I use various different treatments to prepare the frets, then press the fret in, and then follow up with the hammer to get the best possible seating of the wire. The system I use is for me the best combination and helps me take advantage of the strengths of each tool while minimizing their respective weaknesses.

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I’m going to say this up front: as a child of the 70’s, I got into music in the 80’s. I got my first turntable at age 8, back in ’84. I missed Jaco first time around, and although I respect where he took the electric bass, I have never really got into him since.

Anyway, Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones is generally accredited with being the first guy to defret a fretted electric bass, and his bass playing is pretty much as solid as you could ever want. There’s also some sweet and subtle fretless work in Pink Floyd (“Hey You” “Learning to Fly” “A Pillow of Winds”), but probably THE reason for me getting the fretless bug was Pino Palladino’s utterly killer bass playing in “I’m Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down” by Paul Young. Bakithi Khumalo’s bass lines on Paul Simon’s “Graceland” certainly helped fuel the fire.

I’d been taking an SX Precision copy as a backup bass to gigs, but it got bumped out of rotation when I scored a 1976 Aria Pro II ‘Professional Bass’. I’d wanted to defret a bass for a while, so the one I paid a whole $103 for seemed to be the perfect candidate!

One of my secret shames is having brutally defretted an old Gibson EB-0 copy, back in my uni days, using a pair of nail-clippers. Never finished that job, so I vowed I’d get over the line with this one. OzBass forums user PilbaraBass mentioned using timber veneer from Bunnings as fret markers; sure enough, I was able to pick up 5 meters of iron-on Maple veneer for under $10. So, time to begin the defretting process again, with a little more care this time around! I removed the neck prior to starting, and I’d oiled the fretboard earlier, just in case it was a little dry. Supposedly it may help the frets ease out if you really saturate it before the job.

It’s worth mentioning the tools used – this is a cheap project:

• cheap pair of end-nippers, tips filed down
• soldering iron
• old coping saw blade (you could also use a hacksaw or craft knife)
• scraper
• scissors
• F-clamp
• tack hammer
• mineral turpentine
• 3/4″ wood chisel
• 120, 180, 240, 320, 400 & 600 grit wet & dry sandpaper
• 0000 grade steel wool
• lemon oil based ‘fretboard conditioner’

For each fret, I’d hold the soldering iron on the end I was going to pull first for long enough to transfer some heat (this helps the wood release the fret more easily), then move the iron along a bit while I levered the fret up. I basically walked the nippers along behind the iron until the fret popped free, then repeated the process another 20 times. Took maybe half an hour. For this fretboard (rosewood), it worked a treat.

There was the usual chatter from the fret tangs and maybe half a dozen little (<2mm) chips that started pulling out, but no clean breaks. I wicked a bit of superglue into the chips to hold them down during sanding, then knocked it back with some 180 grit. By the way, for those playing at home, it’s the little rips from the fret tangs that make the wood filler method look so nasty. I cleaned out the slots with a coping saw blade that just happened to be the perfect width.

In order to use the timber veneer for position markers, you first need to remove the adhesive from the back. I cut off a length that would be about enough to do 21 frets (and some spares). Clamped one end down to the ‘workbench’ (my old outdoor table, seen better days!), got a green scourer and some turps and loosened up the adhesive. Scraped off the gunk with a blade, wiped down with some paper towel & repeated the process a second time to my satisfaction.

It was then just a matter of cutting the strip to the widths needed (with enough to hang over the sides), and checking the fit. It turns out that these fit the slots perfectly – nice and snug, but not much force to get them in. The thing to check is whether they’re sitting flush or not – most manufacturers radius the fret slots so there’s less void space in the fretboard. I’d figured that this was such a cheap instrument that I could get away with it, but that turned out not to be the case. I ended up giving the underside of the markers a quick and nasty radius, just enough to stop them rocking in the slot.

A brief diversion: this is Martin Koch’s recipe to build a radius sanding block. If you’ve got enough scrap timber to put one together, you can save yourself a bit of cash. Alternately, make one 3 feet long and you can do the whole neck in one hit!

To install the fret markers, I ran a line of glue over the slot, quickly seated the veneer, tapped it in with a hammer and then wicked more glue along the slot. I didn’t get perfect placement of all the markers, but it looks good enough for an SX!

Once the glue had dried overnight, I took to the veneer with a wood chisel (very carefully – haven’t used one since Shop A in junior high) to knock the worst of it down. Just take your time, keep the chisel at a flat angle relative to the fingerboard and NEVER position your hand in front of the chisel!

I then used 120 grit on a plain sanding block to lightly work the bumps out, making some effort to follow the existing radius.All you’re doing here is getting the worst of the veneer ridges and superglue overflow off; don’t go crazy with the paper at this stage.

As per Martin Koch’s plans, I made a mongrelised radius block from scrap wood. It didn’t work out too well for a 12″ radius as the wood pulls into a v shape when screwed all the way down. As is, it’s about 18″ radius. Ideally, you’d make one about 3′ long and clamp it to your bench, as I mentioned earlier, but there’s just no way I could get it plumb with my limited tools.

Filling Fret Slots Ends No Deposit

I had a few issues with sanding, but there’s plenty of meat left on the fingerboard so I’ll leave it alone for the time being and see how I get on. It’s a tad lopsided down at the bridge end, maybe elsewhere too. I worked up from 180 grit to 600 grit with my radius block, then rubbed in lemon oil with some 0000 grade steel wool. Incidentally, I rolled the edges with a screwdriver shaft, then gave it a very light sand before the oiling, just to take the harshness out of the fingerboard edge and make it feel more ‘played in’.

After the oil had dried, I gave the fretboard a quick buff with a clean rag & reinstalled the neck. Lowered the nut a fraction to make the action feel the same as when it was fretted, then popped a well-worn set of Fender SS Flats (40 – 95) on. Final step was to adjust the truss rod to lower the relief, then plug into a Boss OC-2 and chorus, and crank out the Paul Young! I did get a little more contemporary with some Roni Size “Brown Paper Bag”, I must confess.

I may not be Jaco’s biggest fan, but I _do_ have the urge to repeat the process with a cheap Jazz bass, and epoxy (or superglue) the fretboard…

Filling Fret Slots Ends Bonus

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