Official Luthiers Forum!

Here's a newbie question for ya!

Other than (Speed?)... of what benefit over just whacking the things in with a hammer does the caul press have? I mean... yeah I have only done one (twice -due to a "do over") but it really seems to be a no brainer. What problem does the press solve? Do frets really tend to be problematic that you need the nuclear solution? I suppose in a repair shop it might make sense but there seemed to be tons of guys ordering these things and I doubt you're all high volume shops so... I'm just curious... Why?

Are there that many issues with loose frets or those that don't seat properly to warrant the cost? (I'm still debating whether I can get away with one plane or should I get two!)

That's a serious question (The caul, not the plane) because I have no idea.

Rarely do you see the masses flocking around a tool and I am a bit surprised at the number of you that ordered this thing. Either it's a great tool or else there's some sort of subliminal messaging in that thread urging luthiers to buy, Buy, BUY!!! (Luckily I am not a luthier so I appear to be immune.)

Thnx.

Bargain basement pricing on a complete set of high quality fret cauls is causing the excitement. Indeed a very good deal for those that need and will use them.

I do have a "my" complete set which is a 16" and a 12" that is all I've ever use and plan to use. Plus I rather enjoy installing frets with a hammer and I'd venture to say I can do that as fast as using our arbor press set up.

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/fret.html

So in my opinion -- to answer your question -- this is an item for a repair shop, the advanced guitar maker or hopeless tool junkie.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Robert folks are placing orders for the fret cauls sets because they want the value that the cauls provide. Some examples are:

1) You said you only did one fret job but had to do it over..... we never have to do fret work over in so much as the Jaws II and proper cauls set the frets perfectly the first time.

2) Hammering though easy and we do it too is not ideal for consistency. You can "spring" a fret taking the radius out of it and then also screwing up the fret slot having to start all over.....

3) One top tier Canadian Luthier is so very vested in pressing over hammering that when he detailed his methods in GutiarMaker magazine he also indicated that the consistency in pressing was so very good with his controls in place that very little leveling is ever required. That's been my experience too.

4) How are you going to clamp a fret in place easily with a hammer? The cauls are also perfectly radiused clamps.

5) Hammering is an installation method, pressing has the added capability of pressing sequentially flatter cauls imparting a compound radius which is very desirable these days. The cauls are also radius gauges telling you what the radius is exactly where on the board. Do that with a hammer.....

6) These sets were off the market for 10 years and this version is improved over what we have been using and enjoying for a decade now. It's possible since Lutherie suppliers are very much a cottage industry that once this batch is produced others who want them will also be SOL for a decade as well.

7) Most of all though do you know that the single most limiting factor on most small Luthier build guitars is the lousy fret work? We see it every day and the clients hate it too after paying several grand and trusting a small builder only to find loose fret ends, unlevel fret planes, and a lack of quality that prevents that perfect action set-up that the client desires.

Now these cauls are not for everyone and may not be for you either. If you like hammering, get decent results, produce few enough instruments maybe for friends and family etc. you might not benefit. That's up to you to decide.

Our business is not Andy's and we are not receiving any renumeration for our efforts to a) test the market and b) solicit the manufacture of the cauls from Andy. We simply want updated sets ourselves because our sets make us tens of thousands of dollars annually. Not a bad reason eh? But not everyone's situation either.

In our fretting classes that we have two more of later this month we teach how to do a compound radius - the caul sets are a must for that as Kevin L. rightly found out.

If you think this is bad... I've got a $2,800 jig that's sole mission in life is to cut a saddle slot.... consider yourself fortunate with the ultimate caul set pricing....

Present!

I seriously have little use for these now or anytime in the near future. Every hobby I've ever participated in has eventually resulted in a career change and either starting a business or taking a job in or around said hobby. I don't doubt that 5 years down the line, if I stick around, this will be the same. Truth is, I probably have too much disposable income and a really, really understanding wife.

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These aren't the fretting tools you're looking for ... move along....

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http://www.birkonium.com CNC Products for Luthiers
http://banduramaker.blogspot.com

I've done a few hundred fret jobs with traditional hammer installation, and if I may say so myself, I'm pretty darn good at it. Of course looking back, my first few dozen, maybe not so perfect.

With that being said, I press pretty much exclusively today, for good reason. In spite of being adept with the hammer, the final leveling shows frets I press to be truer on installation than I can achieve with hammering (which I still do in rare isolated circumstances).

There are a lot of factors with shock, spring back, material deformation, which make a good hammering job tricker than it may seem at the surface. If you're doing fret jobs every week, a good press setup makes sense by economy and consistency. If you do one or two fret jobs a year, it makes sense to avoid waiting for for years of experience to get a good enough feel to achieve almost as clean a result as with a good press setup. If you will only do a handful of jobs in your lifetime though, then it may be suitable to hammer on, and just deal with issues on a fret by fret basis.

There are a number of frustrations which are understandably hard to appreciate until you have experienced them, and in this case - the big uneven gaps between the radius cauls available up to now - this is a frustration I think most any folks who have done enough fret work are well familiar with.

It's a tooling accessory that is long overdue - a press set arranged by strategically spaced narrow increments in the actual height of the arc, rather than round number spec radii which end up leaving some sizable gaps between. On new builds to consistent specs this may not be that big of a concern, and you would have no need beyond a few specific cauls. For repair folk, or those who may do compound radius boards or vary more between builds, a set like this holds some real value.

I will admit I do like to have fancy tools, but this setup is really a solution for a headache that I have been frustrated with for years, as I'm sure many others have experienced as well. Hence the excitement and pent up demand.

On a side note - I find use of the description of "nuclear solution" to perhaps put things in interesting context. We have over $1000 invested in a system solely for polishing frets, at least that much in crowning files, another $1k or more in nut files around the shop, at least $6-700 in fret pressing equipment already, and about $3000 in fret wire alone hanging on the wall. This press set will amount to less investment than we have in buffing and polishing compounds laying around (never mind the actual buffing tools themselves).

I know everyone's situation and priorities are different (hey, I wouldn't spend $5k on an auto lift if all I ever do is change my brakes every few years), but I still wouldn't call this a nuclear solution. The Plek is a nuclear solution. This is an expense which will be covered by less than half the cost of the first refret we use it on.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Hesh, the refret i had to do was more because of my poor attention to the neck geometry. We had to pull the frets and work on eliminating some bumps. Now typing that, we did use cauls for the second fretting, but i was not impressed that it worked better or faster than hammering. In some ways it was more awkward. I do know that after the second fretting there was almost no need for fret leveling. Geometry or caul?? Likely both...

In retrospect, i suppose i should have recognized there was an issue based on how much leveling i had to do. What the heck did i know? None of these threads (that i recall) ever said ' if you ever have to more than touch the frets, something ain't right."

I suppose i can never really know how much of my rework was due to geometry or from using a hammer…there is still some slight buzzing at some frets that someday i need to chase down (very slight and i can live with it completely until i get more experienced)

I did experience (Or inexperience!) the deformation of a fret that i had to pull and chipped a tiny piece of the board out that i had to fix. Yep, lesson learned to keep my aggression in check when hammering.

David, I suppose "nuclear" has some bad connotations that perhaps could be read as being negative, but that wasn't the intent. I suppose i more meant the ultimate solution. I hold things like CNC and the Worksharp 3000 as nuclear solutions.... but they have value when you have the need/desire. I have cheap chisels and a kid who does before he thinks, and while it may be neat to see what's inside a stone, a woodworking chisel is not the way to find out, so i am seriously thinking about adding the Worksharp 3000 to my list of tools (and a lock to the shop door. - Did you know the steel from a circular saw blade makes excellent ninja throwing stars? *sigh*)

So again, thanks for the replies. There's lots of info in there to think about when refretting even if one doesn't use cauls, and this newbie appreciates the time it took for the answers.