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I've been meaning to write these up for a month or so, and did not see them mentioned yet in a few quick searches. Recommended by the fellas to me when I picked up some work for a local not-for-profit.

As suggested by Mr. Morelli, I pulled the frets dry and without heat on two rosewood, one mystery wood, and one ebony fretboard. No chips, which usually requires both some moisture and heat to accomplish. The spring action and finely ground tips make removal easier than any other pullers I've used, to include shop-made Knipex, Stewmac, Summit, and some no-names. Just the right size for my smaller hands, which was certainly an issue with the Summit straight and angled pullers. And without heat and moisture, the time required to cleanly pull old frets was reduced from 20 minutes to something like 5...quick and clean.

The pullers appear likely to be more easily honed than the usual mini-end cutters. I've only done those four boards, but the guys have used their pullers for the better part of a year (at 2-3 refrets/new fret jobs per week), so many fret jobs and no need yet to rehone or replace.

Philadelphia Luthier Tool and Supplies carries these for about $50, but I picked mine up on Ebay for about $55 while PLTS was out of stock. MIJ and marketed under the Hosco name, but badged 3Peaks.

https://www.philadelphialuthiertools.co ... available/

Thanks for the tool report. I've seen those and wondered about them. Since I'm already in good shape on pullers I didn't pop for them. But if I get the new tool bug, I'll keep your recommendation in mind.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Like these, got a pair 3/4 years ago.

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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 like these too, but there are a lot of sharp edges around the hinge area. I took a file and knocked down the sharpies wherever I could.

Those look a lot like the newer StewMac fret puller. I have one and like it a lot.

https://www.stewmac.com/luthier-tools-a ... et-puller/

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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 also have the newer SM puller and was thinking the same thing.


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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Thanks for the review! I love tool reviews, especially luthier specific. I've probably got a couple I could do...

Pat

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Pat

They look good and what makes them work well is the flat face combined with a decent bevel angle to "lift" the fret simply by the act of closing the pliers while keeping the face firmly against the board.

This is how the original batch of Stew Mac fret nippers were manufactured of which we have one pair from before my time. All the SM nippers since then have too shallow a bevel angle to lift the fret much when closing them.

I don't like the term "pullers" and have been in several conversations other well known luthiers who agree that we should not be "pulling" anything, that's how chips happen. Instead we should be using the tool to gently lift part of a fret while using it's ground face to keep chips in place and from happening in the first place.

I'll have to purchase a set, thanks Woodie and everyone else for the recon work here.