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Issues pushing frets into ebony fretboard
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Issues pushing frets into ebony fretboard
I’ve only built a handful of necks and most of them have been roasted maple fretboards. This time around I am using a beautiful and incredibly stiff/hard piece of ebony. I am doing a light hammering in of the frets to get them seated and then using the hand-held vice clamps from Stewmac with the correct fretboard radius to push them down evenly the rest of the way.
This process works just fine on roasted maple. It’s just a softer wood that seems to be more forgiving in general.
I am trying the same process ebony and man…….same frets, same size fret slots as I normally do……I REALLY struggle to get them seated with a hammer. Then trying to use the clamps to seat it the rest of the way……it’s just not working.
I’ve tried widening the fret slots a bit and it helps but it’s far from perfect.
Any tips or tricks that I’m missing here? Thank you!
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5 Replies
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Can you send a short video of the issue to ian.davlin@gmail.com ?
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There is a little jig called the fret barber. Shaves a little off the fret barbs. You might try using that, or as an alternative, file the barbs a little. Problem with the latter is it is hard to be precise.
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StewMac wire? I’ve found that the overall tangs and barbs on the StewMac wire are difficult to get into normal .020-.022 slots. I almost always use Jescar and it never gives me problems to where I have to widen the slots.
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I had this issue with ALL Parts wire, i bought like 3 lbs of the stuff and ended up throwing most of it away. never had any issues with stew mac or jescar & promised myself never to buy anything else.
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Thanks all. I widened the slots with a bigger blade and deepened them a bit. It’s to the point where they kinda slide in and I’m using CA glue to get them all the way there. Hammering them in just doesn’t appear to be an option. All using Stewmac wire which I prefer.
I’ve tried the Dunlop wire from Allparts and while I love them for so much stuff but not the fret wire. The tangs are so shallow it doesn’t allow for much room for error.
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