Official Luthiers Forum!

All factory guitars need to be dressed. The only exception I have seen is a certain EVH strats, it appears to have been dressed at the factory or by a third party.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I am curious Hesh,
how do you and David manage the fret plane shape when leveling.
I have read snippets of your methods but can't imagine working to the tolerances you are proposing w/out a neck jig.
Once you play around on neck that has a few dial gauges on it you quickly realize how dramatically they move under the slightest pressure. Slacking the truss rod to achieve a flat plane for leveling seems problematic given how strangely truss rods can act on a neck.
I find a jig much better at duplicating the shape of the neck when it is strung.
I have a hunch that many fretters and re- fretters don't realize the dramatic affects the weight of their hand and tool are having on the necks shape while scrubbing away on fret tops. To say nothing of actually pressing down.
Observing sharpie ink disappear is not necessarily telling the story many think it is. Having perfect leveling beam tolerances won't make up for a strange fret plane shape when the truss rod is eased.
Without a neck jig, how do you guys back bow a classical neck when leveling so you don't remove too much relief in a stiff neck?

It's tricky to learn, and even harder to accurately describe in any brief summary. All I could really say is that it's a method of manipulating by hand during leveling with support and stresses placed at strategic locations, along with sequential markings and checks to balance out any potential errors. It involves a very long learning curve, a lot of experience, practiced observation skills, and strong discipline to follow the rules and read observations honestly (a much bigger challenge than most may care to admit).

I've offered week long classes on fret work in the past, and found it a challenge to convey a solid understanding of the methods and principles in that time, so I certainly can't give a fair description in a post. Even after learning and understanding the methods, for most I would expect at a year or two of regular practice to really get a solid handle on it. Another reason why the Plek machine can be so attractive, both to minimize the training period with employee turn over, and minimize fatigue on hands that would be doing this job day in and day out.

I actually did a refret today that took me about 2_1/2 - 3 hours, and admittedly let my standards slip a bit. In brief examination I found at least one error of around .0005" at the high E end of the 2nd fret, and another a bit less than that (.0002"-.0003") at the 5th fret in the A-D region. Had it been priced as a premium job with standard turn around time I would have corrected these, but I let it slide because it was actually a heavily discounted rush job for a family member who was passing through town and I had an extremely short window to do the job. So I do let things slide on occasion, but just as importantly our methods do allow us to recognize small errors like this even through quick checks in a rush job.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

The majority of Classical makers use a very short sanding block, so it doesn't remove the relief. They don't deliberately back bow the Neck. The relief is scooped into the board, with differing relief for the two high 'E' s.
Of course that isn't done by all. Some don't even bother with any relief, leaving time and string pull to do it.

David,
I certainly agree that words on a forum are a cumbersome and time consuming challenge for conveying the subtleties of fret work.

As someone addicted to pursuing higher accuracy in my work, I find the tolerances you are claiming intriguing.
I have tremendous respect for your work but at the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, (on Christmas no less!) I am a bit skeptical.

My experience and observations are that necks don’t even return consistently to the same position within .0002” after flexing from normal handling. Do you find this?
At that scale, a warm hand or heat from friction on a cool bar or straight edge will slightly alter its shape, to say nothing of gravity or how it’s supported.

Hesh put forward a beginning list of criteria that constitute, “good fret work”. If a fret is out .0005” and is only acceptable because it’s a, “heavily discounted rush job”, what would you say is a definition of acceptable fret plane tolerance for his list? , ( I can’t decide if this is a rhetorical Question or not).

Michel N.’s comments illustrate why I asked about a classical neck.
A classical neck is just one example of a neck I sometimes carefully manipulate on a jig to get predictable results. Using a short block will preserve some of the shape that is there, (good and bad), but it won’t necessarily give the proper geometry to the fret plane. At least not within 0005”, (you really should be ashamed of yourself for letting an instrument go out the door with a half thou error on it ). Relief can be put in the board before installing frets as Michel describes, but hoping to preserve it precisely to your standard after pressing or hammering in frets seems optimistic.

I am intensely curious how you get such a neck within your tolerances. But I’m not expecting you to explain it here. We are all short on time. If you ever give another class, I may have to come see your methods for myself.

Anyway,
All in good cheer and Happy holidays everyone.

Sincerely, the X-mas fret Grinch

Hesh mentioned pressing frets in over the heal and body. I offer up some photos of my proprietary ,"catamaran" press for anyone who made it this far in a lutherie thread when they should be with family
One end of the steel dowel is press fit in a shoe. the other is a sliding fit to accommodate different spacing between frets.

Ok so I'm guilty of reading this thread on Christmas eve. I'm obsessive about my fretwork but still have so much to learn. That's a nice solution David.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Thanks for the pics David. What kind of tape is that you are using on the body?

I second all of David Farmers questions-

Accurate measuring assumes some sort of repeatability and any part of a guitar (or wooden structure of any kind really) repeating to a few tenths seems incredibly optimistic. I would love to see your setup if you are getting repeatable measurements to that tolerance.

Also, from your most recent post David (Collins) I'm getting the sense that the real answer to great fretwork is literally "it's in the wrist". Assuming of course that the first 95% (all the things Hesh listed in his first post) is only half the work towards a truly special setup. I find that to be true for every part of guitar making.

It is also likely discouraging for many to hear that in an instructional thread on good fretwork (that started very practically) the actual answer is years of practice, some highly detailed and unexplainable methods, and a masters touch. Not that the answer should be anything else, but still.

I will say that I think there is a different practice for builders and repairmen in terms of setups. 95% of the setups I do are on my own guitars where I built the necks (the same way I always do). I'm not starting with an unknown in terms of stiffness, or how it will respond, or how the frets were installed etc.... It is easier, if only because I'm doing something I expect to react a certain way. If faced with an unknown (as I have been on occasion) I quickly realize it is going to take me a lot longer that I thought it would. Will I still get a satisfactory (and many times pretty great) result? Of course- it just might not be even slightly quick.

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Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

David - Absolutely you should be skeptical! I would be too, as the claims do seem extraordinary. It's one of those things though, that if we had a few days together to go through how we achieve and inspect the tolerances, it would make more sense.

Dan and Tom Erlewine spent two full days filming in our shop about two years ago, with a good part of it dedicated to our fret dressing process. Ultimately it was just too much to condense in to a video for the bulk of their audience though, and so we spent the last hour or two throwing together simple little tips and tricks for other things. Dan (who was using a Plek at the time) made clear he saw our methods as on a whole different level, easily matching and in some aspects outdoing what the Plek could achieve.

Part of your skepticism though, is not only justified but entirely correct. No, there is no way to control precision to within tenths of a thousandth, or even thousandths to a perfect line or curve along the length of these flimsy necks we use. I made another post a few days ago breaking down how we categorize short range and long range accuracy differently though, and this is where that comes in.

When I talk of discrepancies that small, it is not applied to the line as a whole. A neck may be adjusted dead straight, but tilt the guitar 30°, or touch the back or the neck with your pinky, and it can easily shift .010" or more. So although I can't claim .0005" long range consistency, I can maintain a smoothe consistent line that does not dip or hump from a steady trend. The .0005" error in my second fret means that when the neck is dead straight this fret is .0005" below the line, and when it is curved in to .010" relief, it lies .0005" below that smooth curve. Likewise we can maintain within the average deflection range of the neck) that the bass side will show .003" or .007" greater relief than the treble side. Or when relief is shaped in we can focus the curve in the center of the neck, or in the first 5-7 frets where it steadies out to a comparitively straight line after that, or any number of intentional offsets and compromises. On some necks (like a Pete Seger long neck banjo, or a floppy Jazz Bass neck) we have to anticipate irregular response of the truss rod vs strings and wood movement, and focus relief in a way that an owner who doesn't maintain humidity may see the relief centered in slightly different regions through the seasons, but can avoid an S-curve when the rod is adjusted for winter.

So it's not that I'm saying an entire neck can be held to .0002" or .0005" absolute tolerance to a long straight line, but that short spans of 2,3,4 frets can be held to such consistencies, and any short range should remain consistent within the overall string planes. Long range tolerances are more easily viewed as consistent to flexible curves though, and harder to place accurate numbers on when the curves themselves can shift as they do.

This is at the core of why I never use spot leveling though. Sure you can level a series of 3 or 4 frets to be perfect to each other, but how do you ensure this micro plane is kept accurately referenced to the larger lines? Connecting a series of these subsections may seem feasible, but extremely minor errors within the limits of tooling and observation methods can easily add up to a lot of little zig-zags, or a 2-5 range that is not accurate to the plane extended up to the 12th. Try marking a series of 24 dots on a piece of paper 1/2" apart, throwing one or two slightly out of line. Then try create a perfectly consistent line connecting small sections with a 2" straight edge, compared to the consistency of using a 12" straight edge for your line. Small isolated sections connected do not reliably allow for the same consistency as treating the entire line as a whole.

If you spot level one or two small sections, there are two possible motives. One is that a fret or two is high, the other that a fret or two are low. If a fret is high, you may be able to spot level it out without even slightly affecting the reference frets, though ensuring the line established by these reference frets is still perfectly extended out to meet references at the far ends is another challenge all together. Conversely, if you employ a full length beam to level this one high fret, I find it not only more reliable, but easier and quicker. The one high fret is taken down, but the rest only kissed and not in need of any recrowning, just a quick full polish. Plus you have ensured that the modified fret is not only in line with a short span, but referenced to being accurate within the longer plane. To true up one fret across it's radius to be in line with it's neighbors, while also ensuring those neighbors were accurately aligned with the rest of the board would take far more effort and time, and with less reliable assurance of accuracy.

Now what if the one out of place fret were slightly low? Consider the challenge of trying to chase this correction from one section to the next while maintaining consistent long range lines.

I know there are many methods, and I have indeed inspected others' work which I was skeptical of being able to achieve good accuracy and been surprised. Spot leveling however, is a method that not only makes little sense to me in terms of efficiency or practicality, but also one that I've yet to see bring ideal results. Of course I've not seen everyone's execution of their own spot leveling methods so who knows, but I personally can't see any practical sense in it.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

David - What are you using to measure down to .0002"-.0005"? I assume some kind of shim? What material?

Burton - I think you nailed it better than I could have. "It's all in the wrist".

Might sound hokey, but in the end a good part of it does come down to this. The tricks are learned in doing it, improving methods of accurately observing and evaluating results, reckognizing where insufficiencies exist, and refining your methods to address these. Much of it simply comes down to a back and forth pattern of refining observation and execution, and building a deep tacit understanding of how the strings and neck can move.

I want to make clear that I'm not purporting to have some exclusive unmatched method - lots of luthiers do fret work in their own way which I could not find the slightest flaw with. The common links seem to be that they are acutely attentive, and very experienced, and could probably as easily describe in words how they achieve their results as I can.

It's all in the wrist. There are some tricks to developing this "wrist", but it's awfully hard to convey these tricks in a written outline.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Believe it or not, I can appraise these errors pretty consistently with a string, eyes and ears, and finger pressure at this point. To train and learn this (and in this case to put more reliably measured numbers to it), I have a few custom made straight edges with .0001" dial indicators built in to them, one with a gauge reading on center, the other reading at the end.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Hi David F. and sorry for no reply from me yet. I spent yesterday at the hospital getting my guts put back in..... as a result of four hernias that I am now patiently waiting in line for my surgeon the white angle of death to fill and recut my saddle slots.... And yeah they did give me some great drugs too so ain't life great....

Seriously looks like Dave C. answered what you originally directed at me so I wanted to address your very clever jig for using fret clamping over the body.

Our jigs are very similar, same concept, assembling a bearing surface for the lower jaw of the clamp in the region of the frets approaching the body and over the neck block. We use the Jaws II but your clamps would work fine with our jig and I would be right at home using your jig with the Jaws II.

I'm back at home flat out on my back, doc's orders so I can't take a pic from our shop but I will try to remember to do so the next time I'm in the city.

I wanted to address another concept that has been brought up in this thread and to couch it correctly the idea is why go to such great lengths when wood moves, gravity has an impact, and may other factors come into play such as rubber necks and even the deflection of the leveling beams themselves. Chasing one's tail when all this uncontrollable stuff is happening seems a rather academic exercise to some. Understood.

I put myself through college with my first business which was a bike shop. As a kid I had started working at 15 assembling and tuning up bikes for a local dealer. My speciality was truing wheels which some who are also cyclists such as Terry K., Paul W. etc. here will likely know some things about truing wheels as well.

It's also been described as both an art as well as a craft.

I would take it beyond the basics in an effort to do the very best that I could. Folks would say at times why take it to this level when the wheel has no load on it and when it does and has someone riding the thing and also introducing other loads such as the drive system distortion will sure as shootin happen.

The answer then is the same answer as it is now for why we take fret dressing to the levels that we do - results. With wheels often designed as well to be close to the edge of failure favoring mass reduction some of the precision that we achieved was indeed lost under load. But most remained and this afforded riders the ability to have brake pads very close to the rims with no unintended contact or resulting drag. Folks would often not comment at all about the results of truing their wheels but would most certainly notice that the brakes were more powerful.

In my view the same holds true for precision fret dressing. It's likely true that most folks would not experience any value in taking a fret dress beyond good enough.... which, by the way is a moving target as well and very much player dependent.

But again there are lots of folks who have demanding requirements that could not be met if we did not seek a very high level of precision.

There is yet another reason why we take fret dressing to the lengths that we do - because we can. This is not "work" for us in the sense that we have to move X number of pieces from this side of the room to the other by closing time. This is a passion, a genuine interest that some of us live, eat and breath very nearly 24 hours a day. Sometimes even more with the right pain killers....

There is a repetitive aspect to many Lutherie tasks and they can indeed get boring when you do enough of this stuff. It's natural for the mind to wander and not just outside on the busy streets of a university town on a hot summer day either.... One finds themselves thinking about additional ways to control and tighten process, improve results, speed up the process, etc. It's unavoidable and a very natural progression in my view for a skilled craftsperson.

Dave C. loves doing research and he's dang good at it too. He touched on Dan's (Earlywine) and Tom's visit for a couple of days that they spent with us. Dan prides himself on his fret work and is one of the best in the business at it too.

Dan was very impressed with the methods that Dave C. showed him and said so several times. By the way Dan E. can trace his professional roots back to Ann Arbor and the very same Luthier that we took over his repair biz after 52 years running.

Lastly why go to such lengths? Because we believe that one of the ways that you provide real value to your clients is to always do the very best that you can. We have an awareness of the law of diminishing returns which by the expression's very definition the word "diminishing" does not imply no additional value, just less. We are comfortable chasing that last few percent even knowing that things change, wood moves, etc. because the value, recognized or not, is still there just like with truing wheels.

I'm here on Christmas Eve, too. Luckily, my daughter has become an amazing cook, which means I have little more to do during the holidays than truly relax and enjoy visiting with my family and friends. I've got to say, it's quite nice to hand the kitchen duties off to the next generation!

Later this evening I'll be giving my latest guitar to my brother as a surprise gift. Looking at it objectively, I would judge my set up as "fair." The playability is such that I think most people would be happy with the guitar as-is. I guess this is the "good enough" Hesh mentioned somewhere in his first few thousand words.

Like the rest of you, good enough is not what I'm after--I want to do better. Where I think my work falls short is in uniform seating and shaping of the frets. To achieve low action with no buzzing, I have to get pretty aggressive while leveling. I don't like the way that leaves my frets looking, even after carefully recrowning and polishing things up. I believe that the way forward for me requires taking a few steps backwards and really focusing on preparation of the fretboard and fret installation. Thanks to those who've shared tips on how to approach these critical and meticulous tasks.

Hesh - Sorry you had to have your guts pushed back in, but glad to know you are back home and on the mend.

Kringle greetings everyone and best wishes for a wonderful holiday season and happy new year!

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George :-)

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and happy Holidays George!

Yeah it's good to be home, hospitals although surprisingly busy for this time of year are not exactly where I want to be over the holiday...

George I had the very same thoughts as you. My fret work was likely good enough too and I had not had any complaints either. I could achieve that action that was desired and all was well.

In my case it very much was a case of me not knowing what I don't know until I know it as per John Hall and Rick Turner's suggestion that we don't know diddly until we learn the repair side too.

The first hurdle that I had to psychologically get over was the idea of fretting a brand new, finished instrument with the board on the guitar.... Once I learned that this provided me with set-up possibilities that could not be realized any other way I began to see the value.

I also didn't realize that there are tonal issues associated with fret work as well and I was directly asked why I go to the lengths that I tend to go to in search of tone... while building and then leave tone on the table with less than stellar fret work. It was hard to argue with, even for me....

Using leveling beams is likely in my experience how many if not most pro Luthiers do things. It may not be a beam but the same idea such as using a long bed plane, a lapped level that does not flex, etc.

Anyway it was an eye opener for me and I am willing to make the case and defend same as well that my guitars got better in noticeable ways for having concentrated for a spell on learning to do fret work more accurately, consistently, and on the finished instrument too.

I'm afraid with all this talk about taking things to the molecular level.... even though the word unobtainium has not been used I want to be sure that we are not scaring folks (or insulting them either). If one uses just the very basic concepts of a precision leveling device that can span at least the 1st through the 12th and then a shorter device for the 12th through the last with very little effort you can raise that level of "good enough" to what is likely and in reality no longer a limiting factor to any reasonable set-up or action level that you wish to achieve. It does not have to be about dial indicators, the "touch" etc to get at least 80% of the way to the point of no further realizable returns.

Your instruments will sound better (no loose frets...), play easier and we even have folks tell us that they can now make that chord that they have been struggling with or something else about how they play that just got easier and more consistent for them.

That's value! Personally for me when something that I can do helps someone else get to a place that they have been wanting to get too it makes my day, over and over again.

If nothing else if a few folks who may share some of the passion that I know that I have for Lutherie find themselves more open to or interested in the idea that Lutherie is not simply another woodworking project but instead the pursuit of the necessary level of capability that will help your instruments play and sound better AND be more accepted in the marketplace if that's your bag this thread is a success.

Set-up is important!

Hesh,
You might want to goggle "David Farmer professional bicycle racing"

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

I see that now that you mentioned it, thanks Terry! Happy Holidays to you too!

These last few posts are gems, and the wheel analogy seems perfect. Thanks to everyone for contributing. I can see this thread going into the pantheon.

Thanks for the lengthy reply David.
I completely agree about the futility of working with sections of the fret plane. And I understand exactly your description about short range versus long range accuracy. I have now read your other post. I even considered trying to talk about it in my post but, ironically, decided it would be too long winded to try and articulate it. You did a far better job than I would have. The accuracy you describe makes more sense in the short range description.
But:
At the extreme end of low action, long range and short range accuracy issues overlap and even interact I think.
What confuses me is your methods, (as much as I can surmise them) seem to focus on controlling short range accuracy, (tenths between groups of frets) past where long range accuracy has become more relevant, (overall shape of neck produced by truss rod tension).
For example:
A truss rod may be adjusted to contact three frets before leveling with the strings off and the same three frets with the strings on, but those three contact points may be the only ones in common. The other frets may deviate, from strings on, to strings off, in a way that is more relevant than the perfection of the plane created when leveling.
Am I making any sense?
You say, “We have to anticipate irregular response of the truss rod vs strings and wood movement”.
I’m not sure what method you use to do this. An extremely rigid neck jig is the best method I have found so far.
I am not in the camp that says, “Wood moves and necks are flexible so high accuracy is not relevant”.
Nor am I just trying to poke holes in the possibility of the accuracy you claim.
I am trying to describe what a Plek machine should theoretically overcome.
I think luthiers continue to work on frets locally because to take on the whole fret plane in many situations would leave some frets the thickness of tin foil and the client won’t spring for a full fret job.
As poor and tail chasing and rat holy as it can (usually!) is, many have been able to improve an instrument by fixing short range accuracy and blending it smoothly into a crappy overall neck shape. It is a seductive option when dealing with a poor/cheep/good looking .etc. customer. “Just get the fret job! You’ll love it!”

Goodin, the tape is just some hardware store low tack stuff I was trying out. I'm kind of a tape junkie, anything new I see a get to check out its properties. Tack, stretch, abrasion resistance, etc. I put a couple of buffed up cabinet scrapers over the tape when going at the frets.


Hesh,
I just saw your post, man I'm sorry your in the hospital.
I wish I could write as quickly and easily as you appear to.
Too many years on a bike, not enough at school.
I'll respond when I get the chance. I got some Christmas obligations at the moment.
Take care of your self. Make sure they give you the good stuff!

You guys may have been staring at the sun too long........

I think that sums up most of my failures or re-do's in lutherie.

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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.

Dave touched on some of the kudos that we receive daily from our work and more importantly the value that our clients receive.

Being a bit uncomfortable tooting our own horn here but I also think that it's important to correctly illustrate what can be at the end of this rainbow, so-to-speak of doing the best work that you can and taking something such as fret work to a higher level.

The customer's name has been redacted, his email as well. I found this in our business email this morning. The guitar came in last Monday and needed a refret. This gentlemen is a very good player who has a very light touch and the instrument originally had action of 3/64th" and < 4/64th". He uses custom stings with a wound G.

Our mission should we choose to accept it and this message will self-destruct in 10 seconds... was to "lift" out his old, worn frets which were jumbos BTW and replace them with new jumbo frets. He's a nickel silver guy so old Hesh here did not have to wreck his hands for a day cutting through jumbo stainless wire....

This player as I said is very talented and demanding as well. The scratch that he talks about is one that he showed me only to express how sad he was when he scratched the instrument changing strings. It was not in our scope of work or were we asked to fix the scratch - we just did it anyway because we can AND because we sincerely want our clients to have a very good experience at all times with us.

This was a refret which consisted of removing (lifting...) the old frets, leveling the board, correcting during the leveling process where and how much relief was in the neck currently based on observation and using the existing strings as straight edges for the check.

Once the board was leveled, fall-away was added, it was not present prior, relief milled into the board and the new frets installed and the frets only needed the slightest touch in the leveling process but they did very much need this slightest touch and it always needs to be done if only to check. Frets do not level themselves....

He picked up the instrument two days after dropping it off and was thrilled. Then, this morning I find this in our email.

Again not tooting anyone's horn here but this is exactly why you always do the very best work that you can, especially if you are a pro and accept payment for your services. It's notable as well that his action is pretty low and he uses custom strings slightly lighter than 9's making the fret work even more important - lighter strings lash further and benefit from more consistent fret work.

Let's see what this client thought of his refret using the methods that Dave C. and I are advocating here:

Hesh,
My first job as a 14 year old was in a bike shop as well. Making money to buy ever flimsier wheels to race on. Like instruments, they live on the edge of oblivion. True marvels of design. 35 years later I am the sole mechanic for a family of four and it’s fleet of mountain bikes. Wrenching has little romance for me. Just another thing that must be done. But wheel building is different.. Turning a hub, an incredibly fragile rim, and some heavy gauge strings into a new wheel is a transformation that seems as unlikely and satisfying as turning a tree into a guitar. I clamp the truing stand to the kitchen table, Sit down with a cool one, and chat with my kids while I lace and tension a wheel, strong enough to carry me down a mountain side. Usually I burden them with yet more tales of racing or bikes as religion fervor. It is still one of life’s pleasures. Race wheel building used to have a bunch of mystique and voodoo surrounding it, much like lutherie.

Your client’s description of playing his new set up is the goal. When coming out of a final turn into a sprint finish, there are two tiny contact points where your tires touch the road. Your ability to know what is going on at those points and control them perfectly is the difference between a hands in the air victory and a career ending crash. Frame geometry, spoke tension, rubber compound, all have numbers that can be ascribed to them. If you combine the right numbers with a lot of practice, the bike, (or guitar) seems to fall away or disappear. Becoming just a perfect extension of you. You can feel those two contact patches as if they were your fingertips and make them do what you want. Our job as luthiers is to collaborate with players and give them numbers that will add up to that sensation. Your fret job obviously accomplished that. Well done.