Official Luthiers Forum!

Are these any good, or should I get Stewmac's? http://www.ebay.com/itm/GeetarGizmos-FR ... 20e93dc432

Thanks for any and all opinions!

Alex

_________________
"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Looks good to me. Or you could save even more cash and just buy a nibbling tool and cut a groove in the face yourself with a dremel wheel. That's what I did, and it works well for normal fretwire. Still needs a little cleanup with a file, but I'm not sure the StewMac tool would be any better.

The groove does need to be sized for the fretwire you're using, or else the fret end gets bent. I need to make another one for uke wire. I've been doing them the hard way with flush cut nippers, which also requires even more file cleanup.

I had a student that bought one once. As I remember they didn't work all that well. That is a general trend from eBay tools, they tend to be based of off cheap Chinese made tools modified by someone. For something you will use as often as tang nippers, I would spring for the stewmac version. They will last virtually for ever and they are guaranteed to work.

I agree with Sam. Everytime I use the StewMac nipper, I'm just pleased with how well they work. I can't even remember what I payed for it, but I'd replace it in a heartbeat,
Mike

I also bought from SM, muttering uncomplimentary words like "thieves and robbers" under my breath when I paid for it, especially with the customs and import duties on top!
But I must admit the cost has long since been forgotten with the pleasure of using it.
Even on my first fret job with it, just learning how to best handle it, some of the cuts needed barely a touch with a needle file.

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I made my own and it works very well. The key is to use a quality tool to start with, also, the slot has to be the right size and in the right position. If I had not already had a quality nibbler I would probably have opted for the SM version.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Do any of you have both the medium and large Stew Mac nippers?
The only difference is the slot depth correct? (To account for the width of the fret crown)

Any reason the large nipper wouldn't work for nipping medium fret wire?

I bought that one off e vil bay and it gets 5 out of 10 stars. To me it/s time vs money if you were building every day I would go with the stew mac, for once a month it/s ok . I find a small diamond file works to clean up the clipped end of the fret.

That nibbler has been around for a long time it was about $8 at Radio Shack easy to modify if you care to take the time. I posted the mod about 8 years ago, all you need to do is grind a little channel on the platen. The Stew Mac nibbler is a modified Klein tool currently $26 basically the same mod is required for the conversion.
http://www.skygeek.com/aircraft-tool-su ... gQodIGcAHg

http://controlscentral.com/eCatalog/tab ... gQodjmwAsQ

_________________
Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Another +1 on make your own. 8 bucks and about ten minutes of your time.

Careful what nibbler you start with. There seem to be two styles out there. The one the ebay nibbler looks like and the one the stewmac nibbler looks like. The big silver one is a POS. The little cutting blade has so much slop the tang gets pinched rather than sheared. That, in turn, puts pressure on the cutting plate that you just scored to make room for the fret crown. The hole thing gets jammed up and eventually breaks.

The black ones with the spring on top similar to the Stew Mac one seem to be much better construction. If you are going to modify an end nipper go with one of these.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Perfect- I have a small stack of these from when Radio Shack had then on $2 clearance.

Like Ken stated about the StewMac version being a modified Klein, I bought a Klein tool from Amazon (I think I remembered to link from above) and modified it. Wasn't perfect, but it worked - still needed filing, but I saw no reason to get another, until it started to kink the wire out of shape.

I can't see myself paying that much for the StewMac modification. Of course, I'm not always about logic and forked up for the Hosco version instead. Its a keeper.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Medium-Fret-Tan ... 19e87bd5b5