Official Luthiers Forum!

When I was a new builder and proud as punch that anything that I had anything to do with was actually playable.... at some point it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe I don't know as much as I thought that I might and would benefit from a second opinion. Before we get into that old joke of the terminally ill guy who asked his doc for a second opinion.... I was serious and motivated to improve no matter what the cost....

Remember too that I was the guy who was not a wood worker, had very little interest in woodworking, and prior to my first guitar the only thing that I had ever made were reservations....

But seriously I found a second opinion and this time it was a well known, industry pro, who pointed out flaws in my work that I had not noticed on my own. This led to methods to do better, lots of work, improvement, etc. It was the right thing to do and not always easy either.

Part of the advice that I received included criteria and specs that I could measure myself and my work against. Once armed with specs and criteria and measurements the rest was up to me to build in such a manner that my stuff could meet or exceed the criteria.

Lutherie is a huge topic and as such what I wanted to do was start a thread with a limited scope, limited for now to fret work and expose some who don't know this stuff to some useful criteria that has helped me immeasurably and hopefully will help you.

So off the top of my head I've assembled some criteria below for good fret work and would encourage anyone else who has criteria as well, for good fret work..., to add it to this thread. My hope is that other builders will be able to print or read this and then check out their own creations and see how you are doing. It may help you identify things that you did not know but should know and areas where your instruments might improve. It also might make you more money.....

Seating Frets:

1) Are they all completely down with NO loose frets or fret ends? You can tap each one in three places, each end and the middle with an engineer's scale and listen for any change in tone to detect loose frets.

2) If you break the edge of the fret slot with a file to further seat did you chip out the board or leave any divots that are visible under the fret edges?

3) Have you glued in your frets and even clamped them? Gluing is recommended, we clamp as well.

Fret ends:

1) Have you filed the ends flush with the neck so that nothing is sharp and proud? Are the ends shaped nicely (styles vary and are a signature of sorts of individual Luthiers)?

2) Nearly every manufacturer angles their fret ends too steeply inward giving up precious fret top surface that better players covet and use. Consider leaving more top surface and using less of a bevel. To me even 20 degrees may be too much.

3) In the fret end nipping process often times builders leave "fangs" as seen from the binding side of the neck. These are sloppy and crude and should be filed away or use the nippers in a manner as to not create them in the first place.

Fret Board:

1) I'm only going to address fretting the board on the neck and guitar and not on the board off the guitar. I don't believe in fretting anywhere other than on the finished guitar so my remarks are toward this method only. Was the board leveled on the neck, on the guitar?

2) For acoustics did you mill or build in fall-away after the 12th?

3) Are all slots uniform, clean, depth checked for the desired frets?

Fret Work:

1) Were the frets leveled and dressed on the board, on the neck, on the guitar?

2) Were all leveled frets properly recrowned?

3) If using some of the commercial diamond crowning files do you rock the file or use a three corner file to take the hard edges off the sides if your files creates school bus roof like fret crowns?

4) Do you have slightly more relief on the bass side than the treble side?

5) Are all the frets highly polished and completely scratch free?

5) Did you level the entire fret plane - recommended or are you spot leveling - not recommended....?

That's a good start for some criteria for decent fret work. You can take this list if you wish and see how your stuff stacks up. And there are of course lots of ways to get here but the results that I am mentioning above with the possible exception of the extreme bevel thing are pretty standard fare in the trade for what folks who know know what to look for.

Oh yeah - if your fret plane has been properly leveled a Dread with lights should be capable of action of 4 and 6 (64" measured at the 12th with the high e being 4) with NO buzzing anywhere. For a Dread with mediums the numbers are 5 and 7. Now in either case these are the numbers that any guitar described as above should easily be capable of being set at. Decent fret work can get you considerably better than this too if desired. Not everyone wants low action though.

Hope this helps and feel free to add to this list or ask questions - that's the point.

Thanks, Hesh!

I've been curious as to what constitutes good fret work.

You are very welcome Michael and hopefully something here or in what results as the thread is added to will help you and others.

I've always felt that this forum in particular spends a great deal of time on construction which is a good thing but little time on actually setting the things up for the players even if they player is us.

Guitars are far more than a woodworking project or an accomplishment or something of beauty - they are tools for musicians but before they can do their primary function, be a tool for a musician, they have to be playable. In the custom guitar market specifically the bar is pretty high as well and just another pretty face won't cut it for long.... Many high-end buyers are pretty knowledgable and demanding as well making proper set-up and building for proper set-up as important as a heart attack.... in my view.

Setup is everything!

If the guitar is unplayable, who cares what it's made out of or how... I'd say given your criteria that I'm at about the 85% mark. Your comment about the fret end bevel is something I've though about changing. I use the file setup from SM, and it's always seemed a bit steep.

Thanks again for the thread!

How do you use the clippers properly to avoid fangs?

Fangs are a pet peeve of mine, and generally occur from using flush cutters to nip the fret right up against the board. This pinches the bottom corners of the crown in and down, were they end up embedded down in to the wood or binding in a way that cannot be dressed out without cutting in to the wood/binding.

There are several solutions. With bound boards where you are only trimming the crown with no tang to be concerned with, you can nip the ends with the blade parallel to the board. With unbound boards I find it best to simply keep the nippers at least .020-.030" away from the edge, and any fangs pinched down can be taken off in the final filing. In either case you of course have to be aware of the pressure/position of the cutter to minimize shock to the seated fret. Alternatively you can clip your frets to final length before installing, but they still need to be clipped long by the same amount so that any deformation from the cutters falls outside the edges of the board, left to be filed away after installation.

Then there's that little tiny bit of tang left visible on bound boards from tang that was either not trimmed or filed to a flush surface. That's another little detail I see missed far too often.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Murray posted a great video in the PLEK thread that covers a number of fretting concepts such as fretting on the guitar and not on the board off the guitar, the need to control the shape of the board so that frets are not different heights possibly resulting in intonation issues, etc.

Highly recommended.

I'm happy to say that I scored 99%. Woohoo! My only shortcoming is less relief on the treble side. How much less are you talking? And do you add the extra bass side relief with a few swipes using a short beam, adding the relief into an otherwise level plane?

Here's a tip of my own for eliminating fangs and lacquer chips on finished neck binding: I hang a fret guard from Stew Mac over the rough fret end before clipping. This shields the lacquer from the clipper and holds the cut a few thousandths off the edge.

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It will probably be alright.

Great tip Greg!

Yeah it's a few more swipes while leveling the bass side AND manipulating the neck with our hands such as slight back pressure on the head stock. It's a feel thing and also dependant on how the neck performs under tension as well making it always a pretty good idea to survey the neck under tension prior to any fret work. The exact amount of relief is subjective, player dependent as well so I don't want to put any specs out here because there are always exceptions. Generally speaking though we want more relief on the bass side of the neck.

99% is pretty good my friend!!! Good going!

I try to do all these things, but have not yet attained the skill required to accomplish each task as precisely as I'd like. I'm working on it, though!

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George :-)

George my friend we all are always working on getting better and it never, never ends either.

One of the reasons that I became interested in the repair side is that as a builder only one only gets the opportunity to do say fret work after we produce yet another guitar. Depending on schedules this can be once a month, once a year, etc. I found myself forgetting what I have learned because I did not get to do say fret work very often.

As such I'm willing to make the case which is very much in line with Rick Turner's stated views on this forum and others that being a builder only is a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to sharpening one's skills with set-up stuff, fret work, etc.

My original intent when apprenticing was to take what I had learned to my own creations hoping that they would improve from my investment in some of the less sexy aspects of Lutherie. Interestingly I discovered that I love the repair side as well. One of the things that I like the most about repair is that at times only a few minutes time can dramatically improve someone's instrument. Having a short attention span made building more of a chore for me at times until learned more about the repair side as well. Now my own building is also more interesting to me and those goals that I always make with each new guitar are also more informed and targeted as well.

People come at Lutherie from different directions, an understatement.... As such it's also easy to forget or to have never learned that ultimately guitars are tools for musicians and as such what's critical to quality to them, the players has to be of paramount importance to builders who want their stuff to be coveted and in demand.

John Hall is fond of saying something like you don't know what you don't know until you know it. This single statement is in my view one of the greatest truths in Lutherie. We simply cannot know what the expectations really are until we do what it takes, spend the time to learn, what the possibilities are as well.

Great thread. Thanks Hesh.

After watching the PLEK video, I'd say I'm at more like 50% of the way.. Good stuff

I could nit-pick about the "Plek" process, but I'll start with this: "fall-away"? I understand fall-away to be a compensation for the the distortion that happens under string tension. The suggestion in the SCGC video is that even under string tension, fall-away is required. "Fall-away" is a hump. Explain this element of string geometry.

(My other pet peeve: CEOs speaking as luthiers.) When Dan Roberts talks, I listen.

Not exactly. Fall-away is an additional angle/degree of having the distance between the strings and the frets increase often after the 12th and much more applicable for steel strings than for classicals because of the lower action desire with steel strings.

It's not a hump at all and instead an increase in the string height from the fret crowns in the region where the fret board transitions over the body to the last fret over the body. It's very gradual and may only add approx. .010" of additional increase on the distance of the strings to the frets measured at the last.

I wish that I knew how to use Google Draw or something like this to post an image, if anyone else would like to please do.

Anyway instead of being a hump milling in fall-away often eliminates any body-joint hump if it exists for what ever reason, body distortion, poor building on the maker's part, etc.

We do want to see fall-away where fall-away is appropriate because the lack of fall-away or worse, a ski ramp that can develop over time (this is your body distortion) or was left there by the builder... is the single most limiting factor to being able to dial in low action when low action is desired.

The most common example of the need for fall-away is with Fender bolt-on style necks. The next time you get an opportunity to view a Fender bolt-on style and it does not have to be a Fender either sight down the neck and see if you can see a bit of a ski ramp over the body. This decrease in string to fret distance interferes with the vibrating string wave and often is the source of buzzing or again the limitation to lower, buzz free (for that specific player's style of attack) playability. With these bolt-on necks on electrics you can see that body distortion may have nothing to do with it at all. It's a fret plane issue.

It's common with steel string acoustics too and not because of the existence of a hump or body distortion either. It's pretty common too for some builders to mill in fall-away, Mario P. does as well as SCGC, I do, and many folks that I can name find fall-away desirable.

Most importantly though is to understand what issue fall-away seeks to remedy and that is the tendency of the vibrating wave to actually have physical contact with the over the body frets when we do not wish to have this interference and hence buzzing.

Back to the geometry if you imagine a neck at a specific angle of ever increasing string height from the 1st through the 12th and then continue the neck over the body only with this primary neck angle (the increase in string height over the frets starting at the first and increasing with every fret) increasing from the 12th to the last this is fall-away. In the region of say the 7th pull that line down a tad and this is relief.

Granted as the relief decreases near the 12th this may appear to be a hump and with a 14 fret beast it's not over the body joint either. But at the peak of the reduction of relief at the 12th the string to fret height remains consistent in it's rate of decline in the fret to string height so it's not a hump but more the termination of relief and the start of the new, greater fall-away angle.

So what's it get you?

With say an OM style instrument and players with a moderate playing style may want low or lower action. Often without fall-away you can't get them what they want and the lack of fall-away becomes the single most limiting factor to the desired set-up in the fret plane.

Again with classicals and the higher action of these guitars it's not an issue. It can be an issue though even with a classical if the player wants unusually low action.

You mentioned body distortion. Body distortion can eliminate the increase in string to fret clearance, true and over time (hopefully and not immediately...). But fall-away is desirable in a brand new instrument where no distortion has occurred, yet....

Regarding Richard Hover's remarks I thought that he was and is great! I can nit too and have a bit of disagreement with a few things that he said but far more agreement with most of what he said. And that's a good day for me.... His non-technical remarks such as being concerned for his employees a number of times in the video with comments about safeguarding their career, removing drudgery from what they have to do, etc. it's always nice to see a chief executive who truly understands that their people are their single most valuable and valued asset. Refreshing! The description of the PLEK and process is very good as well and even had me fancying one when I have been a bit of a anti-plek sort in the past.

I have to say that prior to watching this video I did not want to own a PLEK or pay for one. After viewing the video this changed and now I just don't want to pay for one....

By the way when considering PLEKs they require a production environment with lots of use to make the economics work. Six figure plus price tags, limited acceptance to date mostly because of the limited market and even more limited market at this price.

We have personal experience with developing tools for Luthiers, high-end tools that do very specific things as well or better than any other solution. It's never cheap to develop these tools and the very limited market makes them very likely to be money burners and not money makers. Some folks push the envelope anyway in search of the best solution to a specific problem and as an outlet for their creative and possibly competitive inclinations.

Regardless we all benefit from tools such as the PLEK in my view because in a trade conspicuously devoid of industry "standards" defining what great work is machines such as the PLEK raise the bar so-to-speak and make us human bags of mostly water (YMMV ) have to clean up our act.

And to me that's always a good thing or Richard's dreaded drudgery is likely to set in....

Anyone with computer graphics skills wanna volunteer to make us a simple line drawing?

I don't have the computer skills so I had to use a pen. I did it free hand too, without a ruler, that's why it's a little wiggly. But that's about as simple a line as I could imagine.

I'm about to fret my current build.
I'm still debating if I want to glue them in.
Am I correct that if gluing, they must be clamped while the glue sets?
Dan

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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

Thanks Ed but not exactly what I had in mind. Your free hand line does remind me of a PLEKed Gibson though...

I've been playing with Google Draw and can't make it do what I want to do....

That depends. If you are cutting a standard slot (and gluing) there should be no need for clamping. A slightly wider slot and you most certainly will need to clamp as well. For myself the latter technique results in the most accurate fret plane and I only need to spot level the odd fret.

Gluing...... With all of the other efforts that we go to to build in a manner that will stand the test of time gluing frets is not difficult to do either so I wonder why one would not glue in their frets.

A couple of things that are related: First depending on how you install your frets and how good one is at it there can be the issue of the fret slot being damaged in the installation process. When and if this happens glue is cheap insurance against an already compromised fret/slot install.

Folks who hammer know all too well that if it does not go well the first time.... that they also have a compromised slot.

Folks who press frets often prefer pressing because it's pretty difficult to screw-up.... provided that you have the necessary radius fret cauls and a methodology to press them home in every location. Pressing may be more consistent as well but I can't prove this.

Back to glue. My take which would not be everyone's take I am sure is that it's OK not to clamp provided that you've driven the fret all the way home and it's seated perfectly without the assistance of the glue and stays that way at least until the glue dries.

Conversely gluing and clamping can't be a bad thing.

We glue and clamp unless when Dave is not looking then if the frets are all the way seated, perfectly, and remain that way on their own I might wick in super thin CA, wipe the excess, and not clamp moving on. Anything less than an easy install with perfect results though and I am gluing AND clamping. Don't tell Dave though...

The goal is perfectly seated frets in complete contact with the board and no chance of them coming loose on their own. How you get there has wiggle room.

One of the benefits of quality super thin CA is that clamping each fret may take less than one minute IME. Run a bead of super thin CA next to one side of the fret and watch it appear on the other side as it wicks, wipe the excess and clamp the sucker down, hit it with accelerator spraying in a direction so as to not contaminate the board where you are headed next and Bob's your uncle.

Mario once posted that he also uses glue as a lubricant for seating the frets. Depending on what glue one uses if you go the route of a long open time glue that has lubricant qualities I would likely clamp as well so that that lubricant quality does not encourage the fret to try to escape it's mission and slot. If you use CA this would not be an issue in my view. I believe IIRC Mario was at that time using bottled hide glue for frets.

Michael I know that you are fond of your fret rocker and you know that I do not see a fret rocker as a useful tool for analyzing an entire fret plane as a whole - as..... the..... strings..... see....... the fret plane. The fret rocker was never intended to be used for leveling the entire board because of it's limited size and reach.

But I again ask the question how can you possibly know how level your fret plane(s) actually are if you do not use a precision beam and some form of bluing to check? The beam and bluing will visually and clearly indicate where you are hitting and where you are not hitting. A fret rocker sees three frets only at one time.

This is not a disagreement over methods to me but very likely a disagreement over the quality of the results and perception of same....

My world consists of both steel string and classical instruments not to mention the weird-arse other sorts of instruments that grace our benches from time to time. In the classical world fret work can be more forgiving because of the higher action of classical guitars including up to twice as high as what can be acceptable in the steel string world at times. In the steel string world lower action is often expected and hence the fret work has to be more precise. In the electric shredder world with super low action and often alternate tunings including the low E tuned to C.... using a fret rocker would not get anyone even close to a precision leveled fret plane. On a classical one may not notice either but on a shredder it would be a deal breaker.

As such we may not have the same goals. If you believe that a fret rocker will serve your needs and standards well with excellent results I believe that in the world of steel string acoustics and electrics, mandos too you are incorrect.

Hesh. I have had my straight edge compared to a grade A straight edge by a local engineer friend. I also have a 6 inch straight edge and a fret rocker. All have been checked. Incidently one of the edges on the fret rocker was poor and had to be corrected. I have a set of feeler gauges that go down to 0.02 mm.
Any relief is dialled into the fretboard - 0.1 mm on the treble, 0.2 mm on the bass. Greatest relief around fret 5/6. The frets are glued, clamped into the board. Everything is then checked with the feeler gauges and the full length straight edge, the 6 inch one and the fret rocker. I very rarely have to touch more than a few frets and quite often it is only part of those frets. I really see no point in removing material from the top of the frets unless it is necessary. There is no Neck movement after gluing in the frets because I'm cutting a wider slot. The frets are quite literally tapped in with a chisel handle. I'm measuring pull up with string tension at 0.1 mm, so relief on the bass side is 0.3 mm's.

I was thinking, Michael that since you and I keep butting heads over your belief that a fret rocker and spot leveling is sufficient and I believe that you are wrong and that fret planes need to be leveled and considered as a whole there is a way to put this to bed once and for all.

Are you a betting man, Michael?

Joe Glaser in Nashville is a PLEK guru and has more than one PLEK machine. Not sure what he charges to PLEK an instrument but it could be in the $500 range or more for each instrument but again I don't know. I also don't know Joe but do know people who do and he has an excellent reputation. As such he would be an excellent neutral party.

I also know that you are across the pond so-to-speak making my challenge both more complex in terms of logistics and certainly more costly in terms of shipping.

So here is the challenge: You use your methods to do the very best fret work that you are capable of and I will use mine. Let's do steel string instruments as well in so much as they are less forgiving of poor fret work. It also would not matter what the instrument is in so much as we are only interested in the fret plane(s) under string tension. As such a beater guitar would work too so it does not have to risk anything that you or I might want to sell. And since shipping companies are instrument destroyers a beater would be prudent for this reason as well.

You ship your entry to Joe to be scanned with the results being published on the OLF and I will do the same. Your costs will be higher for shipping and we both will have to pay for the scan at Joe's. But wait there's more....

Once the results are published here for all to see the loser.... the one with the most errors in their fret work as per the PLEK scan pays for the entire exercise including for the winning parties participation and costs as well..... Mind you this could be well north of $1,000 with your shipping and mine and the cost of the scans.

In addition the loser will publicly concede that their methods do not produce the accuracy of the person's methods who produced the most accurate fret plane as per the PLEK. I would hope too that whom ever loses the challenge also is big enough to genuinely want to know what method exceeded the results of their own method and perhaps even learn same. After all I know that I participate on Lutherie forums hoping to learn something that provides real value to my clients and I suspect that you do too.

Also instead of further exposing other forum members to the unpleasantness of this disagreement and instead doing what it takes and costs to prove once and for all who may know what they are talking about and who may not know what they are talking about.... we simply arrange the test, make it happen, and remain silent on the subject until the results are in.

Make sense? Winner pays nothing including their own shipping costs and the PLEK scans and the loser pays for it all for both parties? This also means that the loser will reimburse the winner for both Joe's costs and shipping.

While we are at it let's not stop there. If we both can find a suitable instrument that once PLEKed will be of value to say a wounded Vet we both agree in advance to have Joe donate both instruments to "Guitars for Vets" which is a great organization providing donated guitars to Vets. This also eliminates any return shipping costs for both of us AND does something of real value for those who have very much earned it. We leave the world a little better than we found it and settle this once and for all AND avoid any unpleasantness for the OLF and it's members. Think I have all bases that I consider important here covered but I remain open to your suggestions as well.

Interested? I most certainly am! Also I often say please note smiley face and this time I will as well. This challenge is not offered out of anger or any belief that anyone is a troll... but it is very much offered to settle this once and for all, insulate others from the unpleasantness, get some very playable guitars into the hands of Vets and let anyone else who tunes in here know the results so they can know which method produces the best results. Everyone wins except of course the one stuck with the tab but even then if it improves one's chops isn't this a worthy goal too?

Personally I'm keen to send my work anyway wanting to know if what we do produces the results that we believe that it does. So this would be a very welcome challenge on this side of the pond.

By the way I'm not a betting man but I am willing to bet that our methods produce results superior to your methods AND that the results represent real value to our clients.

PS: If you win I will gladly send you a new fret rocker as well...

Hesh, seriously. I'm not the slightest bit interested in your challenge. I have better things to do.
Nor do I understand why you keep insisting that I'm not measuring the WHOLE LENGTH of the fretboard/string plane. I have just told you that I have a FULL LENGTH straight edge, a 6 inch straight edge, a fret rocker and feeler gauges that go down to 0.02 mm's.
I have never said that I use a fret rocker as the only tool for checking the accuracy of my frets.
If you can find the thread/statement where I indicated that, please post it here.