Se a customer who I have known for a long time, and who used to work as a guitar fixer at a store here in Croydon sent his Memphis built Gibson 335 to us for a refret .
He asked us to take photos, so I thought I'd share some pics Tom and I took along the way.
We captured more pics of the preparation and groundwork this time round as we have already shown stages of the actual fretting stages in other photo stories, but it is good to se how much work goes into the process and why such a job can run to 5-6 hours of solid time at the bench.
We had a LOT of refrets in recently so a few pics may show fretwire being cut for multiple jobs.
Anyway - here we go:
Starting off wth some coiled fretwire (this one is Dunlop 6000 that we had to cut for an ESP Horizon the same week). We used Dunlop 6100 for this job.
First we have to clean the wire to remove any of the oil from the manufacturing and which is also there to inhibit tarnishing.
The oil needs to be removed to allow the glue to help hold the fret in the slot.
We use Naptha (like lighter fluid/petrol)
I like to bulk prepare my frets as I find it less time consuming and easier.
I made a set of 3 cutting jigs for the main sections of the board by fret length
1-6, 7-12, and 13+
It is very slightly wasteful as we cut enough wire to allow a little hanging over even for the longest of the frets in that batch, but the saving in time at a relatively high hourly rate is more worthwhile.
Here is Steve's wire all cut to the 3 lengths , but as yet unprepared for installation .
Here we have the other batches of wire that I prepared that morning
Many guitars have a re-sale value. Some you'll never want to sell.
Stockist of: Earvana & Graphtech nuts, Faber Tonepros & Gotoh hardware, Fatcat bridges. Highwood Saddles.
Pickups from BKP, Oil City & Monty's pickups.
Expert guitar repairs and upgrades - fretwork our speciality! www.felineguitars.com. Facebook too!
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The small cutters get under the head of the fret and lets us walk the wire out from one side across to the other . Repeat 22 times.
Here you see the criss cross pattern of chinagraph pencil so we can see areas of the board that the leveller hasn't touched .
We will often add a little fallaway to the last section of the board - seriously not much but enough to allow a little clear air for the string to vibrate in especially when playing up around the 9th - 15th fret area
Fret slots are cleaned out and checked for depth with a small saw, and a special hooked scraper and the use of a specially chosen tapered cutter in a dremel. We widen the very top of the slot very slightly to allow the barbs on the tang to start their pathway in.
and eventually the guitar is ready to receive frets , although the frets still have a lot of preparation before we can install them
Many guitars have a re-sale value. Some you'll never want to sell.
Stockist of: Earvana & Graphtech nuts, Faber Tonepros & Gotoh hardware, Fatcat bridges. Highwood Saddles.
Pickups from BKP, Oil City & Monty's pickups.
Expert guitar repairs and upgrades - fretwork our speciality! www.felineguitars.com. Facebook too!
Tang nipping tools are so useful, and generally they do a great job, but they always leave a trace of the tang that you still need to file away .
We tend to usually cut the wire with a tiny bit on the other side of the nipper which helps stop the cutter from twisting and deforming the tang as it pushes through.
You can see a little of the remaining tang in the gap where the nipper has done a pretty good job on it's own.
Another view of that. It doesn't look like much but we still need to remove it .
To start lets remove the leftover bit
Snip and it's gone
Many guitars have a re-sale value. Some you'll never want to sell.
Stockist of: Earvana & Graphtech nuts, Faber Tonepros & Gotoh hardware, Fatcat bridges. Highwood Saddles.
Pickups from BKP, Oil City & Monty's pickups.
Expert guitar repairs and upgrades - fretwork our speciality! www.felineguitars.com. Facebook too!
A sharp needle file is your friend and you start to appreciate the better cut that a Swiss made file has over the generic Chinese made ones .
Many guitars have a re-sale value. Some you'll never want to sell.
Stockist of: Earvana & Graphtech nuts, Faber Tonepros & Gotoh hardware, Fatcat bridges. Highwood Saddles.
Pickups from BKP, Oil City & Monty's pickups.
Expert guitar repairs and upgrades - fretwork our speciality! www.felineguitars.com. Facebook too!
So frets are pushed it with some medium viscosity superglue in the slot
Once all installed the ends are nipped with cutters and then need to be filed flush wit a slight bevel inwards. we have quite a number of these bevel files .
The one shown here was one that Tom made to hold a particular micro-planing file that Stewmac sell that is very effective at cutting.
Next up would be rounding and smoothing the ends of those frets in a manner that we learnt from The Santa Cruz Guitar company , where we leave a triangular facet at the fret end with nicely rounded corners blending into the sides of the frets.
Many guitars have a re-sale value. Some you'll never want to sell.
Stockist of: Earvana & Graphtech nuts, Faber Tonepros & Gotoh hardware, Fatcat bridges. Highwood Saddles.
Pickups from BKP, Oil City & Monty's pickups.
Expert guitar repairs and upgrades - fretwork our speciality! www.felineguitars.com. Facebook too!
For the fret dressing process have a look at this article
Many guitars have a re-sale value. Some you'll never want to sell.
Stockist of: Earvana & Graphtech nuts, Faber Tonepros & Gotoh hardware, Fatcat bridges. Highwood Saddles.
Pickups from BKP, Oil City & Monty's pickups.
Expert guitar repairs and upgrades - fretwork our speciality! www.felineguitars.com. Facebook too!
Many guitars have a re-sale value. Some you'll never want to sell.
Stockist of: Earvana & Graphtech nuts, Faber Tonepros & Gotoh hardware, Fatcat bridges. Highwood Saddles.
Pickups from BKP, Oil City & Monty's pickups.
Expert guitar repairs and upgrades - fretwork our speciality! www.felineguitars.com. Facebook too!