The Hub

Hi, I just saw the Trussrod repair/ new fretboard post by Dan Erlewine and Rodrigo Gomes. I really liked it, especially the idea of carving the fretboard with the table saw! I could not comment on the article. I am sure there was a reason for replacing the whole fingerboard in their case. I wanted to document an alternative method that I tried two weeks ago with sucess. I did not invent it though, i have seen it somewhere in the interne…

Hi, I am still a little confused by the new look of the forum, hope this is the right place to ask. Which fretwire would you recommend for a refret of this 70s LP? The current frets are 2.75mm wide, but dressed down to 0,35mm height. I have heard storys about frets that are this low but never seen in real life before :-) (0.108" wide and 0.014" height). Thank you in advance :-)

Straight Frets in Austin has an excellent full-time position opening up soon. The job pays by the job, and equates to $70-85K a year for a tech that does: *neck resets *structural repairs *bridge making/reglues *refrets *headstock breaks with splines/airbrush We work on about 1,350 guitars a year (about 28-30 a week) and have had work shipped in from 22 different states at this point. We also teach setup classes on…

Well, I am pulling my hair out here... just did a compression fret job on a 2017 D18 Authentic 1939. Neck had severe excess relief, so I pulled the frets, planed the board flat, and got to work....done this a handfull of times, so I wasnt expecting anything out of the ordinary...... I got a handful of frets in, checked my relief by stringing up the guitar, and decided I need to keep pushing, so I got a full set of frets in and som…

Hi all, I am a newer guitar tech and after dozens of repairs this particular Simon & Patrick Luthier Cedar top SP6 acoustic dreadnought from the 90-ies with a bolt-on maple neck has been an incredible challenge. It came with a maxed out and stuck truss rod with a considerable up bow in the neck, extremely low saddle with barely any string break angle, so it needed a neck reset. Later on I figured out that it also has a pretty dras…

Hi, thanks for this great resource. This is my first post here. I work on my own instruments and have little experience with advanced repairs. Recently I acquired a ca. 78 Sigma DR28H. I bought it because it sounded great and came with a pickup installed. I wanted something for open mics and gigging. With light strumming it sounded fine but I found some buzzing when I took it to a jam. I made a nut and saddle , adjusted the truss…

I have a 74' D-28 im working on, just curious what you guys do in terms of process steps. Right now, im setting the angle, without frets(I reinforced the square tube rod with carbon fiber and will need to refret once put back together.) Do you guys shoot for the straight edge hitting the top of the bridge with, or without frets? Im wondering if I should undershoot my bridge just a touch so that then I can fret and have a good saddle hei…

Hello, I accidentally sawed through a binding during a refret. Any suggestions? Thanks!

Working through my first refret. Trying to straighten the neck before radius sanding. What should the natural relief look like when straight? Using a straight edge there’s always slight gaps somewhere. Does natural neck relief start at a certain fret?

Hey! I have a friend who builds flat tops who wants to give stainless a try. I have done a handful of refrets and he was asking advice. He is using a compound radius from 14” to 20”. Jeskar sells the coils and they come in 10”. I have only done installs where the wire matches the board precisely. I bought pre cut pre radius bags for these re frets. Has anyone worked on a compound radius. Do you radius each fret on a bender or can you get…

Hey everyone, I have a Vaccaro bass guitar and I'm getting a lot of open note buzz on it. In truth, the bass could stand a refret but that may or may not be in the cards. Additionally, the truss rod nut is stripped. I'm also wondering if this nut is designed to come out? I imagine it is but it's kind of funky. A 1/4" Allen wrench is still too small to grip it. So the questions: 1. How would you deal with the zero fret and the nut? The st…

Thought I would introduce myself, I am a retired computer nerd ex farm boy that loves to fix things… used to repair/rebuild pianos but now that I live in FL, space is at a premium in small home so I now am venturing into repairing guitars…. I have numerous practice candidates I have picked up on the cheap as not to destroy anything of value or collectability, and have tooled up with enough stuff to be dangerous. I have done several aco…

Hello everyone, I use a Stewmac japanese fretsaw (which produces .023" wide fretslots, matching the width of the tang of stewmac wire) to recut my slots on refrets. The saw does a good job making the slots deeper, but struggles to make them wider and binds like crazy throughout the process. I think that is due to it not having enough (or any) set, so in theory it only cut downwards and does a poor job removing material from the slot wall…

Looking for some guidance here – I have a 1973 Jazz Bass with maple fretboard and fretboard binding in for a re-fret. The finish is of course built up thick and crackly along the frets, and although they’re not seated too nicely, the first few came out really tough and chippy even after scoring the finish really well. I’m aware that Fenders were fretted sideways until 1982, but because of the binding, pushing them out sideways is not an…