Fender frets

[Bob Steinarsson]

I read this in the Aussie forum: Then, of course, there was the Fender system some years back of pulling the frets in from the side so the tangs cut a slot. I believe (& I could be wrong, I've been known to be in the past ) this was only employed on their maple necks.

Is the writer right or wrong? Did they treat the rw and maple necks differently?

[Russell Vance]

Actually, the frets were pushed in from the side with a hand held caul and a foot operated pulley system. Usually associated with maple CBS era necks and generally responsible for doing a lot of damage when unknowing repair guys try to remove the frets by pulling them in the conventional manner. The frets need to be removed sideways for a clean job (but new frets can be pressed in the normal manner). Done a bunch of these. Have enclosed an image of the difference in the fret removal style. Rusty.

[Rick Gentry]

I was working on an old cheapo Musicmaster with a rosewood neck and had the chipping problem you are talking about. The birdseye maple neck on one of my Teles was the same way. Dan Erlewine has a great piece on this on one of his DVDs.

[Paul Breen]

Is anyone using the sideways method of fret removal for other re-frets and not just sideways fretted Fenders? I always heat my frets with a soldering iron while pulling frets and this works pretty well most of the time. Old Ebony can be especially chippy though, no matter how hot or careful or slow I go. I have been tempted but have as of yet to try sideways removal for "other " applications. There certainly has got to be some risk of chipping out the edge of the finger board going out the side and side blow-outs can be more time consuming to repair. Obviously you won't be doing this with bound fingerboards but I am curious to see if anyone frequenting this site has tried experimenting with this.

[Russell Vance]

Paul, conventionally installed frets have a diamond shaped cleat impressed in the fret slot with untouched wood inbetween the cleats - pushing them sideways will meet a lot of resistance as the diamond cleat will be pushing into virgin wood and the risk of chip out at the fret slot end is almost a certainty. The sideways installed frets carve out a channel with their cleats (while having the top of the slot pressurised by the sliding caul) and sliding them sideways is no great drama. I have not attempted to remove conventionally installed frets sideways and won't be doing it because of the aforementioned reasons.

Old brittle ebony is what it is - I haven't been able to deal with it satisfactorily and have resigned myself to ebony dust and superglue dropfills coupled with slightly wider frets where possible.

[Rick Gentry]

If I can remember to, I start at the top. Heat and pull one, and see if they split out like the pushed in frets do. You can always mix a little CA with some dust to fill in the pits, if the crown doesn't cover.

[Paul Breen]

...The sideways installed frets carve out a channel with their cleats...

Rusty, yes, I understand the how the whole deal works. If I'm not mistaken, Fender had one guy that could operate the sideways installation jig and when that guy left the company, no one else could do it well enough so the method was abandoned.

The diamond cleats are stamped into the tang about every 3/32". The fret would only have the resistance that you mention for that distance before a channel is created. The issue boils down to chipping out the edge of the fingerboard. I can't help but wonder which would take less time, fixing up pulled chips from standard removal vs. what might happen to the edge of the fingerboard. I can say from experience though that it can be a time consuming repair when you loose pieces of the edge from the top of the finger board. This can also happen, when installing frets, if a diamond on the fret tang is too close to the edge of the board when you push it in. I'm always careful to leave a bit of space there. But what if the edge of the board where supported somehow, sort of like putting a board under a piece of work that you are drilling a hole through so you don't chip out where the bit exits? Your going to have to fill the little holes you get from the tang not being as deep as the slot anyway. If the chip out can be controlled or at least minimized there might be some merit worth considering. I was hoping to find somebody had already done the leg work on this question.

Standard procedure for me for a full re-fret will always include dressing the fingerboard. Large chips are glued back as they occur (CA) so I don't loose any meaningful bits of lumber. CA and dust generated from sanding fill all the remaining pits from lost wood. I also wet both sides of the fret slot with CA to glue any fractures that you can't see and help toughen up the slot. I never count on trying to hide chips with the fret, that should not be a determining factor in selecting fret size. You have to sand the whole fingerboard anyway so the extra CA applied takes very little extra time to process.

[Russell Vance]

Yep thanks for that Paul, there are a whole bunch of issues as to why you shouldn't pursue this matter but it's not for me to go into them.

Regarding the other matters: we are a professional shop and one of our specialties is refurbishing CBS Fender necks. We see all manner of challenges when refurbishing some very difficult jobs - we sometimes do not have the option or sanding boards where fretboard width (critical on vintage Fender necks) will be reduced if the board is taken down due to the decreasing width of the surface caused by the curve of the back of the neck- hence my comments on having a selection of fret wire available that can marginally cover some of the nasties, such as embedded fretwire edge depressions caused by heavy fret installation. (82/84 thou replaces 79/80 thou in CBS necks for instance) You also don't "have' to sand the fingerboard in every job and, as you noted, in partial refrets it is desireable not to (for matching purposes).

We use CA at the time of fret installation - pre hardening fret slots before installation is a technique only used for specific problems and as it hardens the wood prior to the frets going in it causes problems in itself once the frets are in (the wood in a fret slot should spring back to capture the diamond cleat and snug the fret in) - pre-hardening the slot with CA stops this happening as the fret 'chisels' itself in. We do however syringe water into the slots if they are oversized as this will naturally bulk up the existing endgrain timber and tighten the slot. Anyway, I guess we do a lot of fret work and are kinda particular in maintaining a set technique, but feel free to experiment.

[William F.Eden]

Well for what it's worth to you all. I put water on the frets first let it sit then take an old chisel and heat it with a propane torch good and hot and run it along the old fret.Then take the nippers and pull the fret from one side as i go lifting using the nippers as leverage. After I get each fret out I take the hot Chisel and run it over the fret slot to push every thing back down in place.let dry sand a little and refret. Good luck on your next fret job. Bill.""""""""

[Paul Breen]

...hence my comments on having a selection of fret wire available that can marginally cover some of the nasties...

Your right Rusty, thanks for elaborating on your applications for using the wider frets.

...You also don't "have' to sand the fingerboard in every job and, as you noted, in partial refrets it is desireable not to (for matching purposes)...

Very true, I was referring to full re-frets. I generally don't jerk all the frets out unless there is an underlying problem with the fingerboard, relief issues, hump at the body, ect. that require the additional work.

...pre hardening fret slots...

The CA is not applied into the slot, it is applied to the surface of the fingerboard on either side of the slot. It will find the cracks, fissures and chips I can't see and glue them tight. It's no fun to loose a chip when your to the point that frets are going back in.

By far the majority of my repair work is on acoustic instruments and a good part of that work is old banjos and mandolins. I am constantly fighting brittle Ebony but seldom have a Maple finger board project cross my bench. Thanks for sharing your methods, there is always more than one way to get a job done so I try to keep an open mind to ideas that where not my own.