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I'm just about to fret my (first) bound fingerboard and wondered how others treat, i.e. shape/finish, their fret ends?

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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.

I just finished pounding the suckers in on mine, so I'll be doing the same in a short while I like semi-hemispherical fret ends. Start by filing them flat on the ends (90 degrees to the fingerboard surface), until you just scuff the wood, so you're sure there's no snaggy edge, and then round over with a safe-edged rectangular needle file. Even with the safe edge, you have to dig into the wood just a touch to smoothly round over the corners of the frets, but assuming you don't want a fully sharp edge on the binding in the end anyway, that's ok. Just bevel or round over the rest of the binding between frets after you're done. Results in a nice smooth fingerboard edge, but with perfectly sized little platforms under each fret end

I think some guys round their fret ends before installing them, but I don't think I could get the fret lengths perfect enough for that, especially on radiused boards. Then again, there is some advantage in making them just a hair short, since then the ends wouldn't poke out when the humidity gets low.

I do mine similarly to Dennis. I use a 12" mill file to bring the fret ends down against
the side of the fretboard. I don't leave mine at 90 degrees, however, I tilt the file up and
do a little rounding of the ends. You don't want too much, or you loose too much fret width.
Then I put tape on the fretboard between all the frets, and use small files to create a
"semi-hemispherical" end. It's much easier to do if you buy the StewMac fret files.

https://www.stewmac.com/shop/Tools/Files/3-Corner_Fret_Dressing_Files.html

They are triangular files where the intersecting edges have been smoothed off, so they
don't cut into the fretboard. If you don't want to buy all three, I find myself using the middle
one most of the time.

I leave the tape on until after I buff the frets with a cotton wheel on my dremel tool.

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Gene

Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason- Mark Twain

You can easily grind the teeth off the corner of any 3 sided file. I have a needle file sized triangular file that I did that to and use it for fret ends all the time.

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Chuck Kish

Hi, Colin. I laboriously filed the tang undercuts for my first bound fingerboard. Kind of tedious, but not all that bad. You could do it that way and you'd be successful. Then I got the Stew-Mac fret nipper and that was great. Much faster overall. But sometimes I still needed to do a little filing touch-up before putting the frets in. I let the fret ends overhang the binding, then clipped them off nearly flush, and then filed as usual. On my archtop, I had three fret ends that didn't want to lay perfectly flat on the binding. Acting on advice I received here on the forum, I pushed these down one by one with a screwdriver and wicked in a tiny drop of watery CA glue under the fret ends. Hold in place with the screwdriver about a minute and do the final filing the next day. Presto!

Be sure to file a tiny bevel entry into each fret slot before you put your binding on. Just two or three strokes with a triangle file along each slot mouth will help ease the frets in and help them lay very snugly against the fingerboard surface.

That's a great tip!

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jw ( o)===:::

It is, planned to do just it, but doofus that I am I forgot.
No problem, just ground the end off a small triangular file and started from each side toward the middle of the board.

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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.

Hey Colin, I just finished writing up the report on my fretting, if you want to check it out http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=466240#p466240

But do beware, spherical fret ends are more work than beveled, and of questionable value. I just think think they look and feel cool. Not sure if the playable surface is actually increased significantly compared to a 30deg bevel, but at least it feels less like falling off a cliff if you do hit the edge.

Thanks for all the tips guys.
Dennis, interesting build there, lots of pics details about the fretting, thanks for that.

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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.

It's interesting because people tend to think that a bound fretboard is smoother because the binding covers the fret tang. But I find that most of the catchyness on frets is due to the two sharp points that the bevel makes right at the contact edge. The fret tangs are the easiest part to file flush.

I use a simple little file from Stew Mac to round off those corners. It's a flat safe edge file on one side and a U shaped safe edge on the other. With a bit of practice getting your technique down you can just roll the edges right off. Follow that by grits of paper and steel wool and it's polished right up.

EDIT: I see DenisK does the same technique. BTW I use the same fret tang nipper. Think I got it for like 5 bucks, very easy to modify.

These discussions on fret end treatments are always interesting!
Anyone ever tried shaping an angle on the underside of the fret only above the binding.
The end of the fret would then be cantilevered out over the binding with a semi-hemi end, I suppose
I see no useful purpose for the above other than a difficult challenge.
Sorry, just thinking outside the box a little. Gotta quit that!

If you're not thinking outside the box ...you're not thinking at all!

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Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

I rounded over the fret ends with a dremel tool and cut off the tangs to clear the binding. The frets are installed in the normal way and the fret ends lay on the binding and create a smooth transition.

This arrangement has been stable for several years and shows no sign of lifting.