Stainless steel refret

[Freeman Keller]

I'm posting this thread for three reasons. First, I just completed this little project and thought someone might be interested. Second, I had read a lot about stainless frets but had not actually done a refret with them - this gave me a chance to try it. Third, I've been having a discussion at the Electric forum about refrets and wanted to show a person there just how I do it (not that its the best way, but its what works for me).

 

I've done a few partial and complete refrets using standard 18% nickel/silver wire and of course I have fretted the 16 guitars that I've built to date. I'm not an expert but I think I do a pretty good job and in my humble opinion, good frets are the starting point for a good setup and playability. Lots of people, including many electric players, have used stainless steel frets - they are much harder than nickel/silver and last a lot longer. I've also heard horror stories about how they wear out tools and how hard they are to work with in general. This little Yamaha came across my bench wanting the first 6 frets replace and the owner said he would like stainless. OK, lets find out...

 

The fretboard was in pretty good shape - one divot at the 3rd fret of the second string but otherwise only minor depressions. It is bound in rosewood which makes the job considerably harder. The frets from 7 to the end of the board were pretty good, as is common on acoustics, and I could get SS wire of the same height and width to match them.

 

First thing is to measure and write down the critical action measurements as the guitar was when it came into the shop. Next remove the strings and adjust the truss rod so the neck is as flat as I can get it. There are people who use notched straight edges and all sorts of fancy jigs to preload stress into the neck - I simply try to get my thinnest feeler gauge in (0.002") - when can't fit it at any fret I figure the neck is straight

 

 

Next I put a little heat on the fret to break it loose (I don't know if there was any glue there or not, this will free the fret if there was). Pull it out with some end nippers

 

 

There is always some damage where the barbs of the fret pull out of the wood

 

 

I use some straight pieces of aluminum bar stock as sanding blocks with 400 grit paper. The wooden one next to the neck is radiused at 16" and has 800 grit.

 

 

Clean the sanding dust out of the slots - the back side of an Xacto knife blade works pretty good

 

 

This is a little piece of fret wire that has the barbs filed off of the tang. I use it to make sure the slot is completely clean and the correct depth (it is possible that in sanding the board I've made the slots too shallow)

 

 

Cut the new frets overly long with heavy duty diagonal cutters (yes, they were a lot harder to cut but didn't seem to damage the cutters). Then I need to file the tang off just wide enough to fit between the binding - a little block of wood holds it while I file the ends

 

 

They look like this (by the way, the wire was gently curved when I received it so I didn't have to do that but I've go a little home made gizmo if the wire is straight)

 

 

If this neck was off the guitar I would press the frets in with a caul in my drill press. Since its not I'll have to hammer them in. Because each one is slightly different length to fit its slot I keep them separated with that wood block with the holes in it. Probably not necessary for 6 frets but it sure is for 22. There are different opinions about the use of glue with frets - I put three little drops of super glue in each slot - particularly with a bound board it helps hold the ends down

 

 

After hammering each one in I put the radiused block on it and apply a clamp while I do the next one

 

 

File the ends down flush with the board and at an angle. The SS is definitely harder to file

 

 

Level the tops of the frets. That's an 8 inch piece of steel that's dead flat on the bottom, its got 400 grit sand paper on it.

 

 

Rock each fret to make sure none of them are high

 

 

and recrown them. I guess I didn't take a picture of the crowning - I just use a StewMac medium crowning file. The SS didn't seem to wear the file excessively like I thought it might. Final step is to knock the sharp edges off the ends with a little needle file (the shiny thing is a draftsman's eraser shield - before computers I used to do drafting)

 

 

Clean up the file marks and polish them with 400 and 600 grit wet and dry paper, clean up the fret board with 0000 steel wool.

 

 

Restring the guitar, set the relief and adjust the action back to where it was when I got it.

 

Conclusion - yes stainless is harder to work with - it definitely takes more time and effort. It didn't seem to damage my tools like I had heard. I've got about three hours in this fret job - I'll charge the guy for two and the wire. I would certainly do it again if someone asked.

[garthman]

Nice work, Freeman.

[kwakatak]

Good show, Freeman. I've only done stainless and that was just once. How much easier is nickel to work with?

[Freeman Keller]

Its definitely more work - I had to squeeze the cutters harder and filing was certainly harder. That said, the files didn't seem to cut as aggressively so there weren't deep file marks that had to be sanded out (some, but not as bad as nickel/silver.

 

When I used to work at the fab shop the guys would have a separate set of tools for stainless - different files and saw blades and cutters and stuff. Part of it was that if you got filings from black iron (non stainless) into the stainless it would rust and the whole reason for using stainless in that application was food grade wash down. However the other reason was tool life.