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So I'd like to switch to another method of fretwire install other then hammering in. What is everyones preferred method a dedicated fret press with cauls, a drill press with cauls or maybe one of those Stew mac vise grip or stew mac Bessey clamp design? If you could please explain why you like the method you're suggesting.

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Big fans of the Stew-Mac Jaws II tool and cauls here. We offer classes in fret work based on using this tool.

Mind you there are times to hammer/tap em in but over the last decade we have learned to use the Jaws II tool for very nearly all our fret work.

One added benefit of the Jaws II tool is it moonlights as a fret clamp for gluing in frets too.

With a few creative ideas and shop made jigs we can fret most any guitar and other instruments with this tool regardless of fret locations.

Disclaimer: Since cost comes up from time to time on the OLF we are professional Luthiers doing fret work near daily making the cost of decent tools mouse nuts to us with the emphasis instead being on very high quality results, consistency, predictability and my favorite... no drama.... Don't know for sure but we have likely fretted hundreds of instruments with the Jaws II tool by now without any issues.

I took the fretting class from David & Hesh & learned a ton. Absolutely no regrets and nothing bad to say except I've grown to dislike the Stewmac Jaws II. Repeat, I loved the class but not the Jaws II.

I have 2 gripes:

1.) The radius of my fretboard doesn't perfectly match the radius of the supplied cauls. If the 2 matched, it should seat perfectly every time which mine does not. After installing a fret, I use a 0.005" feeler gauge to see if there is any space between the board & the underside of the head. I can to go back, slightly shift the caul and re-torque a couple of times to get it as close as it will go but that's a PITA, IMO. I use StewMac medium fret wire & a StewMac circular fret saw blade which I assume match.

2.) I feel that the Jaws II is rough on the hands. You have to torque the hell out of it to get the fret fully seated (or as close as you can without a perfectly matched caul). If the handle on the Jaws II was larger or maybe a different shape (like a T-handle) it would be easier to supply the needed torque. I also feel the threaded parts on the clamp are flaky - it's a knock off Bessey clamp and there is a noticeable difference in quality compared to a Bessey.

So I've gone back to using the Stanley 5 oz. Proto dead blow hammer. I find it faster, easier on the hands and produces equivalent or better results than the Jaws II IMO.

Kevin Looker

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

Drill press with the Stew-Mac tool and brass cauls. Works very well, but you wouldn't want to use it on an attached neck. You need to at least fret with the neck off the guitar, and it is easier to do before the fingerboard is glued to the neck, but you can do it either way with the right supports.

Kevin thanks for this and we needed to know that the tool is not working for you as-is.

Dave and I both have the advantage of custom made cauls, 26 of them each IIRC for every conceivable radius and I think that this would be a good idea for our students too to have an expanded caul set.

The frets when pressing should never require much effort from the press and should sit down all the way the first time. Reasons for this not being the case with you may include not enough caul sizes, slots too tight for the wire, how the wire was pre-radiuses.

In class did you use our Jescar wire? I'm asking because the radius off the roll of Jescar is perfect as is. IIRC correctly the SM wire comes straight and has to be radiused. If the radius is not slightly over radiused it will prevent the frets from seating properly.

I'll talk with Dave when I am back in the shop tomorrow and see about asking someone, maybe Andy Birko to start making caul sets again for these presses. John Watkins used to make them and Dave and I have the last two sets that he made that we are aware of.

Thanks for the feedback Kevin and more info to come so that we can improve your experience with the tool greatly too.

If anyone else may be interested in a larger caul set for the Jaws II let me know so that whomever we might get to make these for us can see some return here making it worth their while.

Just emailed Andy to see if he's interested.

excellent info. i would definitely be interested in a full set of cauls.

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I'm just curious to know why you don't like to hammer them in? That might help in determining which method you may like best. For me personally I like hammering them in and I have found that making the slots slightly wider then what is recommended for the fret wire and using glue works well.

Good question, observation and suggestions ---- I'd add that the single most troubling process issue I've observed and perhaps easiest to correct is simply using a hammer that is much too light. Not recommending a framing hammer (although I recall reading that Rick Davis might have said he uses a 16 oz.) but something more substantial than those little plastic capped mallets sold for fret wire installation.

Another issue is not having the fingerboard or neck assembly properly anchored and stabilized to prevent hammer rebound --- fretting a moving target is close to impossible.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Hesh, have you guy's ever messed with an adjusting caul like Nate Clark's? (photo below)
I always wanted to try it.

I've made a few," in between" sizes of cauls. It's time consuming to do. Edit: (If you talk to Andy I'm sure he could get a bigger group here if it would help him make a run of them.)

I couldn't agree more about the knock off Bessey. All Stew Mac would have to do is change the color. Real Besseys are great clamps. To think that's what your getting and receive the cheesy one leaves you with that Voldamart bait and switch feeling.

The jaws I rig has it's own learning and practice requirements. The clamp pressure curve goes straight up at the end, but, if your careful, I think it works well.

Kevin, if the clamp screw is hard on your hands pressing fret's I think they are requiring way too much force.

Hey Hesh, I'd be interested to buy a full set of fret-setting cauls too.

Cheers,
Dave F.

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Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

It doesn't take that much force to get them in, it's just when I try to get them fully seated. I use a 0.005" feeler gauge to see if I can get it between the crown & the board.

In the class I used the Jescar wire that they provided on a Martin fingerboard that had been previously fretted. I just did another with a board I made using a StewMac blade & their fret wire - same results.

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

Kevin, Maybe the inside corner is stopping your frets. Are you chamfering the slot at all?

I try to keep my grip in shape with Captains of Crush grippers, and drive the frets in with my bare hands. Thumb behind the back of the neck and fingertips on the frets works best. Best part is, no denting or hammer marks.

The Jaws II press used to be built with a genuine Bessey clamp, but the new ones seem to use a cheaper knock-off version. I did notice them feeling much stiffer and harder on the hands than the originals, and made some improvement simply by cleaning and oiling the threads. It seems that the difference may not be the thread count of the clamp, but rather friction within the threads, or possibly even at the tip where it mounts to the caul holder. So I'm wondering if the issue here may be more struggling with excessive internal resistance from the tool, rather than the fret seating itself.

At our next class I will take another close look at these, and see if there is any simple, reliable way to improve them. If the cheaper bar clamp on the newer version of The Jaws II (Jaws 2.1?) does prove to be the cause, we may have to seek other solutions. It's pretty simple to turn down the thread of an original Bessey clamp to fit the caul (I've done it before when my original broke after a few hundred fret jobs), but we'll see if that's necessary when I look at the new versions again.

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If a more granular set of cauls were made available I would certainly be interested. I hammer, but I would tool up to press if there was a wider range of cauls available than what Stewmac sells. The limited caul set as sold by Stewmac just seems a little too restrictive for the real world of compound radii, kooky custom requests, weird things coming in for repair, fretboards originally radiused by hand and eye etc.

I used to use the Stew Mac press caul in a drill press, but I've gotten so I prefer to hammer them in. John Hall suggested to me a long time ago to dilute titebond or LMI glue 50% with water and use a narrow tip dropper in the fret slot. Never had a problem...

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Steve Sollod (pronounced sorta like "Solid")
www.swiftcreekguitars.com

I think the problem with the knock off is the plating on the screw. It's a bad match with the cast iron of the clamp.

No, I'm not chamfering but parts of the fret do seem to seat perfectly against the fingerboard while there are little gaps elsewhere. I think it's the fact that the caul doesn't perfectly match the board.


There may be something with the plating too. As David mentioned, cleaning & oiling to tool did help but it seems like my Besi Tradesman clamps don't have issues with being used dry but I typically don't torque them that hard either.

I'm sending my StewMac clamp to David for close examination. I think he likes these little challenges.

Kevin Looker

_________________
I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

Or, I may be heading down to Athens in a few weeks. Maybe I could stop by and take it with me to StewMac, and we could run it through some comparative tests there.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

I use a carpenters hammer with a smooth polished face. I don't hammer the frets in; I use the hammer to firmly push them in while staring at the action with a stereo jewelers magnifier. Once I can see that the entire fret is pushed down to the board I put a speck of thin CA glue on any trouble spots and hold those spots down with the hammer until the glue sets.

Some great posts here, thanks guys!

Here is something else that we talked about in class that may have some bearing on the issues that Kevin is reporting.

Not all fret wire is created equally....

As we all have read over and over and over and over.... again on this forum breaking that inner fret slot edge has two purposes. First it can help lesser.... fret wire that has a "fillet" of sorts at the transition point from the bottom of the fret to the tang seat better in that it clears space for the thick, filet. Second some believe that refrets will be cleaner with less damage and chipping if that inner edge of the fret slot has been broken a bit with say a small triangle file.

We've noticed under magnification that Jescar wire has very little of that filet and as such breaking that inner edge is not necessary and we don't do it. I used to break that edge when using SM wire or Dunl*p wire... but find it not necessary with Jescar.

Frets should seat all the way with no ability to get a feeler gauger under the fret crown at any point.

Also I would again suggest that the radius should be slightly over radiused for the fret to seat well AND the ends to stay down. Hammering in my experience although easy peezy and I hammer too when I am in a hurry and Dave's not looking....... does have the opportunity to "spring" the radius on the wire making it no longer correctly radiused. When this happens it's pitch the fret and start over because no amount of hammering is going to get a fret with the incorrect radius to sit well without unnatural acts. Glue should be insurance not doing the heavy lifting of holding a fret down.

The SM wire is suspect to me in the example that Kevin is bringing up because it does not come with a radius on it. The SM wire that I used to buy before going to Jescar was straight and had to be radiused prior to use, cleaned off well too of contaminants.

Anyway we are looking into a solution for you Kevin and will be in touch. We are also looking into having someone make available radiused caul sets too. FYI when we both got ours they were expensive since the production run is always pretty small. IIRC mine were nearly $200 but it's been 10 years and my mind is just not all there anymore....

One last thing before I had the complete set of cauls I only had the six that come with the Jaws II. I made it work with a two step process. Step one was pressing the fret with an under-radiuses caul that would concentrate on the middle and then I followed up with an over radiused caul that knocked the ends down and ran my bead of glue (super thin CA) then with the clamp still set, wiped, accelerated in a direction as to not contaminate the next slot and was done with it. It worked well for me back then but having all the cauls is way easier and faster too.

More to come and thanks everyone for your contributions here too!

You could add me to the list for the full set of caul's.

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I use the vice grip jaws to 10 and hammer em' in the rest of the way using bags of lead shot under the neck and holding a small bag of lead shot through the soundhole for the extension.

I over radius a little, press them in with a caul that is just a little tighter-say a 14 for a 16 radius board to get the ends seated and go over with the hammer to fully seat. Hide glue in the slots. Above 10 I like to seat the ends first and work out from the middle with the hammer.

I use the StewMac wire so I relieve the slot edges with a small triangular file.

I like to level the board as a last step with the neck on the guitar (double tenon) and level in line with the string runs so the radii are not totally even, the hammer seems to work well as a final step.

I don't like the Jaws II, my utmost respect to those that can make it work.

I'll have to check out the Jescar wire.

So many ways and they all seem to work for someone. I have been pretty happy with mine so far.

For some reason I made a little video of what I do a while back. Sara Jaroz is on the radio and it's a little loud.

https://youtu.be/EY0Dn8EUMG8

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