Acoustic Guitar Construction

I've installed frets on exactly one fingerboard, using the StewMac arbor press and the radiused inserts. Worked very nicely and impressed me that using a press and a die was a better idea than bashing frets into the fingerboard with a hammer.

Now, I went looking for the StewMac die holder and interchangeable dies and got right good and impressed with the price of what are nonprecision tools with no moving parts.

Does anyone know whether anyone sells a competitive product that won't cost me fifty bucks?

Thanks very much.

Arbor set-up -- bought --- tried --- sold -- long ago


No bashing involved -- this has work quickly and accurately for me over the years

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

These days I now use a much larger hammer then depicted $.02

What are the dies that are mentioned?

I will say that for me , using my drill press as an arbor and the press tool to seat the frets is relaxing, although slower than tapping. Maybe I should try tapping again, though, it's been a while.

Oh -- and I also put a couple of layers of duct tape on the hammer so the job is dent/ding free -- those need to be replaced at the end of each fretting session. I should up date the tutor.

Ken, thanks for the advice and the link to your tutorial. Sounds to me that the tutorial is valuable no matter how the frets arrive on the fingerboard. I agree with the folks who criticized the rough-and-ready arbor press. My drill press is much more civilized and will do the same job should I choose to press my frets as opposed to driving them.

Ken, your tutorial mentioned leaving out two frets so's alignment pins can be installed to key the fingerboard to the neck and it won't try to slide around when wet glue lubricates the assembly. Is that alignment keying covered in your kit assembly instructions somewhere? I looked and could not find mention of how to install and use alignment pins.

Again, thanks.

Leave out the first and 13th frets. When you get the fretboard aligned, drill through the fret slots with a 1/16th bit. Then when you glue, the pins hold the board in place so you can focus on clamping and not holding the thing in place.