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Hello All,

Was wondering if anyone had any thoughts regarding the different pressing systems available....would you recomment an arbor press or the Jaws 2 apparatus that StewMac sells. Anyone had personal experience with either? Advantages/disadvantages would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Greg

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Gwaltney Guitars

Arbor where possible, but because of the heal not all frets can be installed with it unless you install frets prior to glueing the fingerboard to the neck. I use a combo of the two and ther are still 3 fres that I hammer due to reach of the jaws 2

Greg,

I use the original Stew Mac Jaws hand held fret press and really like it. In fact sometimes I wish I had two so I could do that alternate press up the neck thing - clamp one, fit the next clamp that take of the first clamp etc.

I use a bolt on neck and fit the frets with the fingerboard glued on, neck shaped but neck off the guitar. When I reach the heelblock area I fix the neck is a supporting jig so that you can hammer down onto the supported fretboard and using the caul taken out of the press use a hammer to gently tap the frets in with the caul.

The Jaws comes with a number of raduiused cauls but get a set that John Watkins is proposing to make and sell you'll be well away.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Depending on the size of the guitar, neck block and sound hole 16, 17 & 18. 16 is possible on from out side using the block method shown on the instruction sheet that came with you Jaws 2, but is hard to control the press and easy to ding the neck or body with the clamp bar. The reach is too short to get these from the sond hole and 20 is a bit of an issue also because the bar on the clamp is right up aginst the sound hole bridge side edge depending on the diameter of the sound hole. I am not knocking the tool at all I works very well in most areas. MichaelP38688.6995486111

Hey guys, a very timely topic. Notice John Watkins' offer of fret cauls in the thread below. Might be usefull to you.

I say to heck with frets...who needs stinkin frets anyway! love those old eastwood movies. anyway,
I have many different fretting tools...arbor press, jaws 1 and 2 , Frank Fords Fret dolly, auto dolly, assorted hammers and probably something else I can't think of at the moment. It all comes down to what you like, what mood you're in, what kind of day you've had. I like them all just differently...

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Dave Bland

remember...

"If it doesn't play in tune...it's just pretty wood"

I just fret the finger board before glueing to the neck using an Arbor. Works great and makes for almost no crowning.

I see there is a mix of timing on when frets are being installed. I started hammering, then pressing with just the fretboard, pre gluing to the neck blank (acoustics). Then went to intalling after the neck was set, prefinish, pre gluing to the body. Then I did an all bolt joint ala Taylor for a year, and fretted post finishing, but mostly with the neck standalone after sanding flat one more time with the neck attached. But hammering here sometimes chipped or blistered the finish under a fret end, so I went back to the frets installed post neck fitting, but pre spraying. Now I am having second thoughts because after gluing these necks on, in about 1 in 3 or 4 the minute hump at 14 is still there. If the finish work is exactly flat and even the neck should sit on the same as pre finsih, but its rarely the case for me - it always needs a couple pulls and tweaks.

Just a quick poll maybe, but when are most fretting the instruments ???

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

I press them in with the Stewmac caul in my drill press, after the board is glued on to the neck, before finishing. I sometimes get a slight 14th fret hump so it's not perfect. I want to try fretting after the neck is on so I can level the fingerboard again before they go on, but I suspect there will be issuses with the finish like Tony describes. I wonder, the Taylor style bolt on is basicly a neck extension, no? I would expect the neck extension to take care of the 14th fret hump, but this is not the case?

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

My next batch of guitars are going to have bolt-on, adjustable necks and elevated fretboard extensions supported similarly to archtop fretboard extensions (does that description make sense?), i.e. the board won't be glued to the top, so I won't have the issue of a hump at the body joint or anything like that. I'm planning to install the frets in the board before gluing it to the neck. I might hammer them, but I might go ahead and get an arbor press (putting the cart before the horse, I already ordered John's set of cauls) and press them in.

Assuming most of us use hammers here and there even if pressing frets, here's a little tip from my class with Sergei de Jonge - try a small dead blow hammer with
interchangeable faces like this:


For me, it works infinitely better than the Stewmac hammer I'd been using. I got this one at
   http://www.hammersource.com/Dead_Blow_Hamm.html


and I use the "hard white" (nylon) face. It's the 1 lb one with the 1 1/4" face.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/