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Love me some Sara Jaroz.

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I do this as well both hammer and the diluted titebond. As long as the wire as even a slight radius this works well for me. I have found that I had trouble hammering in straight fret wire even into an un-radiused fret board. A slight radius allows me to tap in the edges to set, and then I can hammer away to seat.

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UPDATE: I've contacted our machinist to see if he can make these economically and make them available to us all once again. More to come.

In hopes of saving someone else time I'll say that I tried buffing the threads on the knock off clamp. I used a ceramic fret buffing wheel and got them baby butt smooth. It was no miracle. Better, but still not a smooth slide in the female threads. A look through a microscope shows a plating/crap metal mess. I'm confident trying to re-hab the junk metal combo is pointless. It's going to gall and where out eventually.
I have other ways to press frets so had set the Jaws 2 aside until I had someone turn down a Bessey. I was going to have them turn down a smaller clamp at the same time. A smaller one would more useful for the sound hole application on many instruments.
I had no idea the originals were a real Bessey. I'm definitely going to voice my disappointment to Stew Mac. They may not know how poorly the new ones are working.

I've tried many methods and the best results for a new build is fretting with an arbor press before the fretboard is attached to the neck. Usually it works so well that very little leveling is required.

Also, I use a slightly smaller caul to press the ends tight and then place a small strip of cardboard over the middle of the fret and press again. This method eliminates the need for perfectly fitting cauls.

I've been wanting to switch from hammering as i have found in my own experience 7 acoustic/electric guitars and 18 Ukuleles. It has been hard to net out with the perfect example. granted i am trying to achieve a higher quality level as i am learning more and more. I will say I do flat fingerboards on Ukes and have been able to get there relatively perfect. Its the radiuses and even more specifically the compound radiuses which have been much more difficult. With the flat fretboards I ve been putting about a 20 ft radius in wire prior to install and the radiused boards about 2-3" small radius then actual fretboard radius to help seat the middle of fret when hammering as this seems the norm............ A lot of well respected Luthiers swing both ways so maybe it's just my technique. Every know & then there a fret that just won't go in all the way via hammering and if I hammer too hard then we all know what happens then. I use a small dead blow hammer the small black one and used to use the small brass/plastic hammer but prefer the dead blow. Below I will describe my sequence to maybe answer some of the questions people have put forth


This applies to radiuses below
1. Have as many cups of coffee as possible to increase the OCD impulses with the fretting process
2. file slight "V" into top of fret slot.
3. shape frets as needed lately I've been nibbling off the ends with a dremel cutoff tool and filing. bend on adjustable fret bender to 1-2" smaller then actual fretboard
4. start at the headstock end and work towards heel.
5. clean fret slots
6. hammer in one at a time using a tiny amount of Tite bond glue on tang.
7. set the two ends of fret first ever so lightly, then set the middle and work towards both ends.
8. finish off each fret with multiple light taps to assure evenness
9. wipe off any excess glue then move on to next fret.


The only difference between flat and radius boards is I typically do flat boards on Uke fretboards so am able to install the frets in about 10-15 minutes then clamp the fretboard to a flat surface and with a caul against frets and put about 6-7 bessey clamps of pressure. The Uke boards almost always come out perfect.

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I haven't tried pressing yet, and have only done single-radius FBs. I've tried all the different hammers: lightweight with a plastic face, heavy and light with an iron face, light deadblow, heavy deadblow, and finally a hardwood mallet of moderate weight, which has given me the best results. The last 3 or 4 done this way showed one or two frets a little high with a fret rocker. I do a visual inspection using reflected light that also shows inconsistent heights. Those days of filing all of the frets flat and re-crowning on new builds are over for me.

Pat

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formerly known around here as burbank
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Hesh, I also bought a set of John Watkins cauls a few years back. I had read that he was going to quit making them and ordered a set PDQ. Still haven't used them though.


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Where does one buy Jescar wire?

Ok, I found the site. Which one corresponds to stew Mac medium?

I'm kicking myself for never getting the cauls from John back in the day.....

I'd certainly be interested in a full set as I make my fretboards "compound" radius style.

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Never tried pressing, and never felt the need. I've had an arbor press collecting dust for several years. When I have a problem with tapping frets in, I'll try it out.

Hey Mike - I think that I read a classified ad from Simon this weekend where he has Jescar NS wire (nickel silver) in the equivalent of SM medium/medium and he had the part number listed. I believe the wire has been sold but the part number is what you're after and that was in Simon's post too.

I wanted to add something too since I have not read it mentioned in a while on the OLF.

We like Jescar and we do a LOT of fret work because it works more consistently than other wires in terms of sanding, crowning, polishing, etc. It even cuts more reliably than some wires that I don't like. I'll add that there seems to be less of a filet at the crown, tang transition permitting the wire to seat more uniformly too.

Great stuff and we are committed to it with thousands invested in likely every size that Jescar sells. When you use this stuff near daily consistency, reliability, knowing what to expect are pretty important. When you use this stuff even more infrequently all these things likely are even more important to ya...

PS: Jescar wire right off the roll just happens to be an excellent radius for using the wire. Nice to not have to do the radius step anymore.

I don't have much experience (6 finished builds). 7-10 nearing completion (fretted).
7 of them were done with the Stew Mac cauls in a drill press. I like this method and seem to have had good results.

I would be interested in a caul expansion kit too.

#8-10 were fretted up at John Hall's using his method: a light pass with a file to break each fret slot edge, a light spray of water on the fretboard surface, a tiny bead of tightbond 1 in the slot, the fretboard on a piece of 4" round steel bar stock to act as an anvil, Jescar wire right off the coil, and an old cobbler's chasing hammer to tap them in. This seemed to work well too. There were 2 fret ends I discovered were loose a bit later that day and I wicked thin superglue in the end and mouth a small spring clamp on it. That solved the issue.

I will likely stick with pressing them in but I'm glad to have the success of tapping them in under my belt.

Hi all,

Hesh and I have been playing phone/email tag a bit but I've made some custom sized cauls in the past which have worked well. I'll let everyone here know more once I know more.

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Any Please do post when you have some radiuses and $$ available. thanks

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Andy bro I'll give you a call today! Sorry for the phone tag.

Not worried about the cost

My friends I spoke with Andy and as I write this Dave Collins is assembling the correct radius cauls for these sets so that they will be most useful for all.

What we are going to need from you folks is the "c" word, you know..... my least favorite word.... commitment.... I'm going to start another thread or Andy might with the details for the set(s) and pricing and we would ask that folks interested in this offering declare your interest in that thread so that Andy can gauge interest since he has to commit, or not to making these.

Too soon to tell but this may be a one time offering so get em while you can! Dave and I got the two last sets around 8 years ago when John Watkins was making these sets and they have been off the market and unavailable ever since.

New thread to come....

Also my apologies to David the OP for the high-jack of his thread.

Many thanks!

I've been chamfering the top of fret slots, wetting with diluted Titebond (I used a very fine tip applicator to get glue only in the slot) and pressing the frets home with a modified arbor press. I do the boards off the neck, and on the first few its been working very well.

On faux bound fretboards I use the back side of an xacto knife to put the slight chamfer on the slot - just drag it backwards through the slot canted to either side.

I used the needle cap applicators from A2Z CNC for applying glue to the slot.
http://www.a2zcorp.us/search.asp?keyword=needle+cap&search=

You'll see that I keep a fretting hammer close by, just in case a fret acts up, but rarely do I need to use it.

Keep us posted on the larger range of brass radius inserts - I could see those being really handy.

For new acoustics, fretting occurs after finishing/neck on body/final leveling of fretboard - frets go in with a hammer (really, more tapping them in) set in hot hide glue. Refret on electrics are usually pressed in, while most acoustics and achtops, mandos, etc. are hammer-set in hot hide glue. The glue is there solely to bed the fret and eliminate any air gaps.

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For those interested in purchasing the Ultimate Fretting Caul Set, I've started a thread here: viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=47508

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