fretting a new board

[Mark Dobbins]

used to fret my boards after i glued them on the neck, and hammered thwm in with no glue, recently finished one and deciced to fret it before i installed it, pressed the frets in this time ,got a little bow but had no difficulty glueing it on and barely had any leveling, any thoughts on this, is it better before or after?

[Jim Bancroft]

I mainly install frets with the fretboard off the neck, with new instruments. But, I have installed frets after the fretboard was installed on 5-string banjo necks. I don't think it really matters.

Jim

[Russell Vance]

I do both, but lately with the addition of a pre-radiused aluminim caul with slots cut for the frets to sit in (from LMII) for gluing fretboards to necks I have had a good time with doing the frets before gluing the board onto the neck. Less problems with fret compression I think and less clean up of the frets required as I observe.
I use a fret press system and I get a more consistent seating with the board firmly flat and flex free against a sizeable lump of HD3. Nice feel putting in the frets when everything is solid.
Rusty.

[Tim Mace]

If it's a virgin do the frets first then glue to neck.If it's on there the choices are obvious. I do a dot of c/a on each fret slot end and 1 in the middle before hammering tho' I've read where others use hide glue.Also a slight flex at the end of the job is said to take care of the bow.Sounds like I'll migrate to a press job some day

[Mark Dobbins]

I use the caul with brass insert from stewmac and my drillpress and get more consistentcy than hammering, havent really needed any glue, i bevel the slot edges a bit,and leave out two frets for indexing pins so the board dont move when i clamp it.