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Hi

Had a quick go at puting first fret in last night and it wouldn't go in with plastic hammer

Ebony Board is glued onto neck and i was holding in my hand and hitting with the other

Unfortunately i havnt got slot width measurements as pre slotted board but looks ok as far as i can tell measuring with vernier

Is there another technique i can use and is ebony alway a pain as its so hard

Thanks

It needs to be well supported from behind. It should go in reasonably easy. It's not a nail.

+1. Were you literally holding the neck in the air with one hand while trying to knock a fret in with a hammer in the other hand?

The neck needs to be solidly supported on something that can absorb the energy of the hammer hit and keep the neck from being knocked away from the hammer or recoiling back toward the hammer. If it's not attached to the body yet, it would help to clamp it to your bench. That would allow you to use both hands, one for the hammer and the other to hold the fret in the optimal position for it to go in cleanly. Something like the sandbag in the photo below works great. It's just a jeans pant leg filled with sand. The sand is inside a trash bag inside the pant leg. Easy to make and cheap. It conforms to the shape of the back of the neck to provide good support and the sand absorbs the impact.

Did you chamfer the edges of the slots before trying to put the frets in?

All the fretboards I've done so far have been ebony and the frets went in easily.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Ditto what Jay said. If you have good support behind the neck (sandbag is perfect) it shouldn't be hard to get the tang to enter the slot.
Mark

+1
Old pair of jeans, cut off half a leg, tie one end, fill with sand, tie other end, makes a good sandbag.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

First good on you Cablepuller for fretting the board on the guitar! That's how we do it and how refrets have to be done so good experience for you AND you have more control over shaping the fret board prior to installing frets too.

When I first started out we used to joke a lot on this forum because my first shop was in a bathroom in my condo... My second shop was in a spare bedroom with plush, white carpet..... I didn't care.... to hell with anything that was not a guitar!

Anyway long story short I had trouble hammering my frets too. Turns out that my bench legs being on thick carpet were absorbing the blows of the hammer.... It was not until I used something immobile to tap on that I had any success.

Next you mentioned a plastic hammer. For tapping in frets, notice I did not say "hammering" in frets... a dead blow hammer is what you want. Other hammers bounce too much to be suitable and this may be one of the issues that you are experiencing.

The guys are right too on supporting the neck well and a 25 pound bag of bird shot is what I used to use.

Food for thought. We press frets and tap with a hammer too depending on what method gets us where we want to go. We greatly prefer pressing frets though and this is what I wanted to suggest to you too. Fret press tools can be made, purchased, etc. but we believe that pressing is easier, more consistent and with a little bit of thought you can use a proper fret press tool such as the Stew-Mac Jaws II tool to fret all frets on an acoustic regardless of location.

Regarding the beveling of the edges of the fret slots. There are two reasons why some do this. First most fret wire has a filet at the transition from the tang to the underside of the fret. This filet won't seat well unless you bevel the fret slot edges.

We don't bevel the fret slot edges because we use Jescar wire and if you look at it under magnification the transition with Jescar wire is much cleaner without that filet not permitting the wire to seat completely without the bevels.

Second it's believed that come refret time that the bevel will assist in less chipping of the board when gently.... "lifting" the frets out of the slot. I agree with this but the bevel is not the only way to prevent chipping come refret time. We use very, very thin and fresh CA to glue and clamp each fret. When you apply a bead next to the fret if the CA is thin enough you can see it wick under the fret tang and wet the opposite side of the fret board. Clamp that puppy, spray accelerator and the fret is firmly glued in place AND the fret slot itself has been for lack of a better word stratified and reinforced also preventing chipping come removal time.

Hope something here helps you out!

If you want to hammer/tap them in, I've had good luck using a Stanley 57-540 5 oz. dead blow hammer.

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

My tool of choice is a cobbles chasing hammer. Also are you adding glue or water to the slot ?

When I fret , I also do it on the neck and I chamfer the slots edges with a small rifler file. Then a few drops of water in the slot followed with glue , either tite bond or fish glue.
The glue acts more like a lube to let the tang seat. The moisture softens the end grain so the barbs get a good bite. The chamfer helps the fret to seat tighter on the board. The tang as it forms into the crown will not be dead sharp and the chamfer allows the crown to seat better. It also comes in handy when you are pulling the frets later.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Cable: Hesh and the gang have given you a good run through. I concur with the beveling, using a shot, sand bag, or something similar and the use of a caul and CA glue. I don't use accelerant, for clean up of any excess CA use acetone and a single edge safety razor blade as a scraper. Also I just use a plastic faced hammer similar to the one in your picture when clamping and gluing.
Tom

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Thanks J De

This forum always provides
Would never of thought of sandbag, great idea! Yes i was literally holding it with one hand and hitting with the other

Thanks hesh

Would of been easier to fit them off the neck but wanted to do it properly. .
Great advice as always

Thanks for all the input guys will have another go at it once ive got a solid support sorted

I had loads of problems the first time I used ebony for the fretboard. I think because it's so much harder than other woods, the fret slots have to be a really precise thickness or they will not go in. In my (limited) experience, you want to be able to push them part of the way into the slot just using your fingers otherwise they will fight you. On the other hand they shouldn't be too loose or they'll come out over time. I usually use a jewellers file to file down the barbs by hand until they fit nicely. And yes that is as tedious as it sounds!

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Cablepuller - I get the impression from your original post that the neck might not yet be attached to the body. Is that correct?

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Yes havent attached yet but its a bolt on m+t so can attatch if helps

The reason I asked is how to support the fretboard extension with the neck off the body would have to be thought out well. A sandbag like the one in the photo above wouldn't work because it would not fit all the way into the corner between the underside of the extension and the back of the heel. Maybe someone here installs the frets with the fretboard glued to the neck but with the neck off the guitar and could give you an idea how to support the extension.

People have different approaches for when they install the frets. I was taught to install the frets with the neck on the body. In my case, permanently attached, but I don't see why it couldn't be done with it temporarily attached. The important thing when doing it this way, is to provide support under the extension inside the body to absorb the energy of the hammer blows so they don't damage the top in that area. There are some elaborate ways and some simple ways to do that. I hold a compact, heavy piece of metal (a metal working dolly) firmly against the underside of the soundboard between the head block and the upper face brace. The energy beyond what is needed to seat the fret is transferred through the top and is absorbed by the dolly so the top is undamaged.

Edit: Thinking about more, I'm not sure having the neck temporarily attached would be safe since the extension might have a small gap under it meaning it wouldn't be solidly supported. Even if there was no gap, it wouldn't be securely attached to the surface of the soundboard and there might be some risk because of that.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Thanks for the info..yes going to have to think it through. . Wanted to leave the neck glue up so i could fill and finish separately as very small workspace.
I like your idea of supporting it when its on .. thought maybe with it off and use a brick under extension. .
Look forward to hearing some ideas for support off the body
Thanks

I do the fill and finish on the neck and body separately too because they are easier to handle and it's easier to do the finish in the neck body joint area that way , but I install the frets after the finish is done and the neck is permanently attached.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter