Cheap & DIY Guitar Fretting Tools, Tips & Tricks
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- Опубліковано 26 лис 2021
- #BoycottBlackFriday NO AFFILIATE LINKS! I'm not doing this to push sales for anyone - quite the opposite.
However here are some links to some specific videos and channels I mention:
www.sqwayretools.com
www.skyscraperguitars.com
/ gregsgarage
SDM Woodworking neck alignment jig: • Quick and easy guitar ...
Fret calculator: ekips.org/fret2dfind
My related videos:
Nut slot tool: • Quick Tip: Accurate, ...
Latest Boycott Black Friday: • Never Buy Stationary A...
SqWAYre: • What the heck does a S...
SqWAYre X: • You NEED The SqWAYre X...
Perfect Machinist Rulers (Most are terrible, visually): sqwayretools.com/shop/ols/pro...
• #boycottblackfriday
Tip Cup: Venmo: @TimSway or www.paypal.me/timsway
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My Websites:
www.newperspectivesmusic.com
www.sqwayretools.com
www.guineapigtanks.com
www.timsway.net
My content creation partners, products I proudly use and brands I believe in:
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be good,
Tim - Навчання та стиль
My 5th year elementary teacher once told us "knowledge is useless unless it's shared with others". Keep doing what you're doing; your videos are so inspiring.
that's not true, what your teacher taught you i quess.
@@BigEdWo ?
I love that!
@@carterevanroust i meant, if you know something others don't could your own benefit. it is not useless for you.
i hope that makes sense.
@@BigEdWo What he meant is what Tim said in this video. Yeah, it benefits me, but if I die and don't share it, that knowledge goes with me and that's why it's useless. For example, my aunt passed away last year and she was the only one who knew all the family recipes but she never wrote them down cause she didn't need to. I got her to tell me a couple and I wrote them down but all the rest died with her. Now nobody knows how to make them.
Finally, a man after my own heart. A good tip I can pass on for a fret leveling bar is. Visit a local stonemasons yard and ask for a leveled granite cut off from a gravestone etc. I got a 22" x 2"x 1" piece of polished granite for the princely sum of £5. Just add double sided tape and an appropriate grade of sandpaper and Bob's your uncle as we say over here.
Dear friend, I am writing to you from Argentina, an underdeveloped country where there are really very few things to make instruments, and the few that arrive are priced in dollars, but our currency is very devalued and it is impossible to buy anything, your video was inspiring, thank you very much Tim!!! I follow your channel
Greetings Joseph
For me, making tools that do a special task is just as gratifying as building the guitar itself. Especially if those tools can be made with scraps. Thanks and keep it going.
indeed!
Wow! 18 minutes and I saved over hundred dollars. I was about to do a fret dressing and it looked like I needed a dozen special files and all kinds of abrasives. (After 18 minutes on UA-cam.) So I went to the Dollar Store and bought finger nail emery boards and foam nail polishing blocks and a big rubber eraser. -Thanks!
I started building my own solid body electric in 1984. I would go to two different wood shops who sold maple and alder or ash mahogany. I used old hand planes to make two piece bodies to get two edges flat and didn't have pipe clamps so I used 4 2x4's with one edge flat a 1/4" bolt to hold them then 3 press in flange nuts and 3/8" bolts to clamp the 2 sections. I used hand planes for all truing the finger board neck . An old router to cut the truss rod slot and binding . Spoke shaves and files to shape the neck and a set of chiz to fit the neck pocket . Used feeler gauges with filed teeth to slot the nut. I even built 4 strats still have 3 with the same tools except I bought C lamps and pipe clamps and still used the same 1/4" D handle porter cable router to do all the neck pockets and truss rod slot but I made templates for the body routing neck pocket and pu's and so on. Round over bits for the body. Better truss rods mine were home made single action when I started. A small bench top drill press for tuner holes and to sand the body to the line I marked from the template using a sanding drum from sears . I even used a hand saw to cut finger boards , placed one side flat then drew a line sawed then planed the other side. Exacto saw for a fret saw files to fit the tang after I measured it's width. Just filed the saws blade to match the tang.
Only the last 2 I built I bought a fret saw from Stew Mac and a 12" radius block and fret hammer. Never did buy nut files. Always wanted to build an acoustic yet bought those and do my own set ups and level and dress frets . I used a 8" mill file to level , this time I made a 1"x2"x11" oak block cut with my table saw and trued the 1" edges sand paper on the saws cast iron top and plan to use my nickleson slim taper triangle files with safe edges to re-crown the frets . Wanted to get one on amazon for $60 plus but I can get by. Using the masking tape super glue to fix the sand paper to my new oak leveling beam.
Finally bought a 3 degree reamer to ream pin holes in a few acoustic that are recording King parlor size because they use cheap pins that are close to 3 degree the reamer is from a seller on Ebay who makes 3 and 5 and are $57 and just as good as Stew Mac perfect. All sorts of small files and assorted mirrors and pin vices which I use for all tuning key screw holes and added strap buttons.
Now that I am 74 I just have 5 acoustics to maintain and since the 3 strats I built were made here from wood here they never changed with humidity. I sold at least 15 electrics I built by hand and all the buyers were impressed how well they play no fret buzz at all. Even compared to $4000 electrics they have.
Wow nice man
Way back in 1976 I was building my first real dulcimer (the prototype had 12 gauge steel wire glued on top of sawcuts for frets). I managed to buy fret wire somehow but I had no specialized tools. To saw the slots, I ran an oil stone down each side of a hacksaw blade until it cut the right kerf.
It worked, and I'm still playing that instrument. 😅
To add a few more tips: Those little 6-inch stainless steel rulers that we all have are perfect for cleaning out fret slots, and you need those rulers anyway, so. . . . Razor blades of course make useful scrappers, but so, I've found, do microscope slides (cheap and disposable). A regular ol' claw hammer works just fine for hammering frets. Grind the face of your hardware store end-nippers flush on a grinder. They'll work a lot better that way. I think polishing frets is overly prissy, I don't do it. But I do use #0000 (4-ought) steel wool. It's indispensable, in particular, for smoothing fret ends.
Thanks Tim, retired auto machinist and tech here, delving into this luthier stuff currently. Building a fret crowning device as we speak. An african blackwood i found is dense and hard. Hope it works! Worst case, ill need new frets
I learned a philosophy Tim embodies. "All teach, all learn." Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us DIYers. I'm a bit too new to have anything to share. I'm still in the all learn phase.
Cheers. you'd be surprised how much you could help the person a day behind you! I used to teach guitar and bass lessons and the joke among the teachers was that we only had to be one page ahead of our students in the book :)
It is a pity that you do not have a Spanish translation in the subtitles , you work is amazing !
You can get blocks of wood cut to radius for guitar necks for cheap. They work as a fret level for those same radius frets. This trick saves a lot of time, a little sharpy on the frets, and run down the frets once or twice rapped in 600grit. You can see every fret that isn't level. Keeps your frets to a perfect radius also. I used a fret level for my first few guitars before i tried it this way. Saved me a lot of time, and the guitars came out playing better
You can also take an unfretted, radiused fingerboard blank, cover it with wax paper and slather on Bondo to mold your own radiused blocks.
side note: I almost learned the hard way, but when you print a pdf template for your fret board, make sure to do a large scale print at like a Staples or Office Depot, or anywhere that is capable. I printed mine off the computer and realized the fret lines were off enough that by the end of the board it was almost a 1/4" off. Large format printing was perfect.
woah.
You've got to be really careful printing. Printers cannot print right to the edge of the paper so they have a size setting, sometimes buried in the print driver advanced settings. The default is usually "fit to page" which reduces an 8.5x11 page to about 94 to 96% of true size. Set it at 100% and still check a vertical and horizontal line for accuracy!
Great video Tim! Another tip is to hook up with a local Luthier in your area. When I made my first Acoustic I didn't want to fool with the final fretting routine and set up of the guitar. So, for a nominal fee, I let him do all of that. Well worth the expense in my opinion. He was also very willing to share his knowledge and had many items that he no longer used or needed. I offered to purchase a few of the items but he wound up giving them to me just because I brought my guitar for him to work on. We became good friends after that. 👍👍🎸🎸😉😉
Awesome
80+ USD per hour with 1 hour minimums in my city. Final cost is normally more than the guitar cost new, so I do my own. Now I am up against my first acoustic and a saddle that is far too high and the tool for that (to keep it parallel and flat) is 52-200 USD which is so costly for what it is. I am wondering if there is anything else for that that is less expensive?
@@generalawareness101 If you were talking about taking some height off the bridge, you could use sandpaper on a piece of marble or other machined flat stone.
Handy info with another hobby I have... blacksmithing.
You can also use the handle of a small combination square as a fret rocker.
I love the way you present this information! Thanks for staying humble, helpful, open to learning, and being someone to look up to! These are all fantastic tips.
I use an old level too and double-stick-tape emery cloth to it for fret leveling, since it comes in narrow long strips. I love the nail-block tip and the setup jig from cheap rulers!
I love this no-nonsense presentation and approach. At no point you're really saying "don't buy this, it's pointless", but more like "sure, you can get this if you want and it will work well, but if you don't want to commit to that, you can also do this and it will work". To quote a certain show, "this is the way" :)
A brass hammer is good because since brass is softer than steel you won't damage the frets by beating on them
For polishing frets just always used green scotch brite & 0000 steel wool.
Yes 0000 steel wool, I tape off the pickups and use a magnet to clean up the dust.
Side note.... I bought a pair of Irwin end Nippers, then I just ground down the front to where it was flush enough to cut frets..
But a radius sanding block can be made very easily by running a scrap 2x4 SIDEWAYS through a 12" table saw. Works great
Cool video, I make all my tools myself, I have a rule "Never pay those ridiculous prices of Luthier supply stores"
They are over pricing everything just because they can.
Great vid. I just bought a small set of harbor freight nippers ($4.00) to mod into a fret puller. I filed the face flat and used an old chainsaw file on the interior of the closed nippers to create a nice interior sharp edge. Worked like a charm on my 76' FG165s. New frets going on soon...after I clean up the fret board.
That slot in the sanding block is genius!
Great video!! You're so genuine as you talk about things and some great ideas too. The nail buffer, game changer. Cheers!
I am very thankful the algorithm put your video in my feed.
I’m slowly amassing the tools to do my first fret job on a Strat. I recognize the DIY or alternate routes possible for the tools chosen. I know I get intimidated by guitar techs who do it professionally and have the pricy tools I can’t simply afford with doing it once every few years, if that. It’s good to see it’s possible to do a great job without the specialized stuff.
Interesting video.
I had a screw broken in the headstock. Stewmac sells a retraction tool for that.
I used a scrap piece of brass tube. Cut teeth in it with my dremel and saved a lot of money (retractertool, shipping, tax and clearance)
Works like a charm.
I used a normal file for frets for a long time. Nailfiles too.
Just bought a rocker. Improvised for a long time.
Crownfile is very useful but a lot can be done with standard tools.
I use a level too.
I don't think I would never attempt to build a guitar or fret a guitar from scratch but always appreciate someone showing a cheaper option to do anything. Great video dude!
Ha! I thought it was just me, glad to hear that other people just like to watch and learn $h*+ with absolutely zero intention of ever actually trying to build a guitar from scratch. I mean I can’t imagine... Anyway, kudos to you brave souls who do, and thanks for the reality check for the rest of us voyeurs out here! I really enjoyed watching this guy, besides being very knowledgeable, he seems like a good egg! Good vibes all around, ha ha! Hey, who knows, maybe one day I’ll break down and build a guitar? Later all - JD, Montréal
Thanks for letting me know about skyscraper products, have been tempted to check them out.
I use a 3D printer to make various things around the shop, including sanding blocks with whatever radius I need. I've also made miter boxes, with slots at a slight angle for sawing fret slots, after the fretboard is cut to size. These are pretty easy things to design yourself using one of the free 3D design tools (I use Onshape). Oh, I've also 3D printed CAM clamps adding some aluminum bar stock from the hardware store. If you don't have a 3D printer, you may have a friend who will be happy to print some stuff, as long as you provide a spool of filament.
My local library has a 3d printer. I made a knob puller tool and a couple of skull shaped knobs to get my 3d printer certification.
I was always so worried about redressing the frets on my classical guitar, but now with some knowledge on the subject, I can do the job myself.
Thank you.
The nail buffing blocks are great. Less than 2 dollars, and the ones I use have four different grits. They are also good to raise the strings for spot leveling. Great video.
I just ordered some of the 4-sided ones as I'm down to my last 2-sided one :)
Thank you very much for all the knowledge you sharing with us, greetings from Greece!
Love the neck layout tool you made!
Awesome tips and tools!
This is amazing, extremely helpful and interesting! Thank you and keep up the great work!
This is great information Tim. Thank You! 🙂
Great video Tim
Awesome, thanks for looking out! Is helpful 🤘
Thanks so much man ! I love learning tips and tricks from legends .
T, maybe a video on making a leveling file (gluing a file to a block o wood) and the safe edge Tricorner file? Sometimes I like to use a coarse sharpening stone too, just for spot leveling when an area is all akimbo. Also, a piece of leather glued to a block with some rouge would be a good cheap tool build.
right on. I showed both of those tools in this video. I could make them again, but there's really not much to it. I literally just glued a file on to a block of wood. lol. Leather hand held stroper is a good idea, too.
Very helpful video, thanks! 👍👍👍
Thanks for the tips. very helpful.
Hi Tim, I'm known locally as Mr.Fixit...and I'm the only musician at my church and do all my own Luthier Work. I've been using one of the four sided diamond grit honing blocks for knives to do my Fret board leveling. I usually use some sand paper that's got adhesive on the back to start off with then I use the block itself to finish em off. There was a local landscaper that was giving away pallets last year and we picked up a bunch...I just cut and sanded some small blocks frome these and then laid some sandpaper rough side up on a fret board and ran the wood back and forth to get the groove Goin. ...the use either double adhesive tape or trim adhesive and attach sandpaper to it. Then either use the bench grinder or a sander or mount sandpaper to the bench and sand the edges down to where the wooden block isn't quite as wide as the frets or as deep from the edge. I then back cut em or sand them to make for a usable handle built in to it. For my fret nippers I just took a flush cut plier and ground the end closer on the bench grinder. If a guy has a caliper set he can take hacksaw blades and bench grind them thinner to have nut slot files. I thought about spray adhesive on a real thin Guage guitar string and dipping them in a real fine sand. But the hacksaw blades ground thin work real well. I got a hold of an old junk guitar and I use a small saw or sand paper on its fret board so I have extra rosewood which I've mixed with a little bit of cinnamon for drop and fill superglue repairs on fretboard. The Cinnamon has a pretty violent reaction with superglue. A very small amount of brasso or the old Zenith wood touch up sticks work well for me as well. If a person can get hold of gel coat paint they can use tape and dam up any heavy cosmetic damage and fill it with the gel coat. Or using powdered wood putty they can mix a little acrylic paint in it to color a bigger fill. I've notched out cheap metal rulers for checking truss rods. I cut a small notch In the end of a digital caliper and this let's me measure how high the top of a fret is off the fret board and can instantly tell me how far off I am if I've got a fret buzz. I have a spark plug feeler Guage set for technical measuring but I generally just stack some coins. Something you never hear about is the bushings between. The post of the tuner heads and the screw on ends to turn the tuner keys. . . I personally like these tight and not to move real easily. But they will split and fall apart so I basically make my own out of just whatever plastic I can find and trace some small washers around them then cut em out and sand them. And they work awesome. I also take the gear off of thr cheaper opened faced tuners and I sand that inner post that bolts onto down just a tad and the screw as well and this takes out any play there. And I like to take channel locks and squeeze on the hooks that hold those spiraled shafts in so there's no play there either. Lately I've been taking needle files to the bridge and slotting it so I take the bridge pins and turn them around backwards but slotted and the pins reversed givesore sustain and a deeper tone I believe. Soon I'm going to experiment with either a porcelain or a glass saddle for an acoustic. If a guy just uses a few guitar necks to trace the end of for radius ,he can then make his own radius gages or find tubing and hold sandpaper on the tuning and then run the material you want to make the calls out of over the sandpaper . I've gotten a hold of an old sewing table and modified it to be a fold away Luther's center. Mounted a small vice and corner vice holes drilled for screw drivers and pens and fret wire. Places for straps . I'm going to mount an arbor press on a board with a hinge to fold under the bench. I'm thinking I want to put some slots in and make it so the pieces that support my neck while I'm working can lock in place and be tie downs for straps. I love making my own specialty tools and I've noticed recently a guy can hold his Lazer level from the side of the neck to easily see if it's level.
Love the drumstick hammer!
What an absolutely fantastic little video, Thank you !! Subscribed
Nut slotting. Make custom tools with a Dremel rotary tool, calipers, a magnifer and hacksaw blades. Grind to needed thickness and shape blade to cut round bottom slots.
Damn, blade as a ruler is great idea! Thanks.
I used a small machinist square for a fret rocker, it did all the frets for most instruments! Thanks Tim!
nice and exactly! :)
Thank you Tim you’re awesome.
Great stuff! Thanks Tim👍🏼✌🏼
Tim!!! Thank you thank you thank you!
AWESOME video!
I've made some great fret slotting, fret board cloning jigs with plywood and some pinch clamps. I made a fret press from an aluminum can crusher. I do as much on the cheap as I can.
Nice job sir ! So much knowledge in a small amount of time. Thanks!
Im starting my project soon and this video is a blessing, thank you so much Tim!
Thanks for putting all of these in one place. It will be easier for me to find later. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you, great video. I'm that person that likes to do my own fixes to my guitar. This really helps.
I use a piece of 1/2" thick x 4" x 25" glass I use for fret leveling. It's double sided obviously. But other than that I've made tons of my own luthier tools. Been building for 22 years, Old Soul Musical instruments, Michigan USA. And if anyone looks that up there is a violin maker in Minnesota with the same name, that is my Uncle, and I had came up with the name first but it's us.
yes, glass is handy indeed. I got my hands on some granite countertop cutoffs that i use for flat reference on the bench, but it's a little heavey to drag over the guitar neck :)
@@timsway Live your channel very much Tim. You've swayed me in ways I may not of went in before and that really says something when your able to influence others. Keep up the great work, keep innovating, keep doing what you do brother. Much love!
@@timsway
You have to check those. I used granite as a base for working on blades and as soon as it gets bigger than a small sanding block, it's not true anymore across the surface. A straight edge that has a thin edge (translated to hair ruler in my tongue) is the best for testing trueness against the light. It's used on engine surfaces too so the further one moves away from musical instruments the cheaper the tools get. For setups it's worth the cost to have a higher trueness variant. Buy it once and have it for all your life.
Thankyou so much Mr. Tim
Thanks for the tips!
Thanks for the great ideas and information...✈️✈️
Nail files! Brilliant. Raiding my daughter's room as soon as she's outta sight 🤫
Just started watching you...what a blessing! I like your advice and knowledge. Thanks for sharing Tim!!
Awesome video, one more thing razor blades are great for scaping things off, dna off finger boards, places where u have super glue cracks, all sorts of things!
Thank you so much for this. It was very helpful and of course you now have a new subscriber
Thanks Tim! I'm just getting started and building my collection of tools. I appreciate you sharing your experiences and taking the time to make this extremely informative video. Thanks again!
I bought nippers on Amazon and filed a square slit on the face.. they work perfectly. $14
Good stuff! Keep it up!
lots of great tips, but i will say that the right tool for the job is key to GREAT fretwork. I used several tools that were either cheap to but and get the job done, or home made- like nippers ground flat for pulling and cutting frets- but it wasnt until i actually spent the cash and got the right tools for the job when i saw my fretwork go from okay to incredible. i just finished my second SS refret on my own guitar, and it actually required no leveling because pressing the frets in was much more consistent than hammering. i had no chip out, using the stemac chip stoppers and fret puller helped immensly, and using hosco SS fret nippers cut the frets extremely close to the neck, so very little end filing was needed.
Yes, do it your self and cheap tools are great for beginning and learning to do your own work, but if your goal is to work on other peoples instruments, the right tools make a massive difference.
agreed
Great tip on the use of the beam level, to level the frets. Thanks.
My friend, your are a Eco hero. Thanx
Spool clamps… igot spools for thread, cut them in half!theaded rod wing nuts. Work great! If you have a Scrapbox store in your area go there, all kinds of bits and peases left overs it fantastic!
Hi Tim, this video is extraordinary ! Thanks for sharing, wishing you all the best life can offer 😊
Great information. Thanks a million
Thanks for sharing ! This is very helpful and inspiring for a lot of people that do this as a hobby.
You could make fret rockers from aluminum rule also ,thanks for your tips.
Phenomenal video!
I love the solar system fingerboard.
That was a client's idea for a custom build, but I did make another one that's in stock. It's a real nice guitar: newperspectivesmusic.com/shop/ols/products/universal
Great stuff ! Thanks !
I’ve had some of the same ideas ..
Tim, thank you for all the wonderful words and also thank you for all the info you share while building your guitars. I've learned so much from watching your experiments over the years.
thanks man, and thanks for making awesome tools for the community.
Thank you for this info!!!! Liked and subscribed
Great points Tim, there are so many tools... just keep an open mind and You be presently surprised with what is already available! Great videos!
Not a guitar builder, but I have learned a lot of things from your videos.. you're never to old to learn, And you will never run out of things to learn..
Very nice video...and I'm happy to see someone else that can think outside the box....👍👍
Tool talk is very cool. Thanks.
Deff useing all these tips! I always wanted to make a 9 string classical guitar but tools are expensive
THANKS a lot for the tips!! This video taught me a few tricks! :-)
Great video 👍
Great video man!
Great video!
To the point information. Thank you!
Thank you Tim.. i make cigar boox guitars but sometimes i have to use some tricks too.. your's are always handy .. thank you from italy
The cheapest way I found to get a mirror finish on frets is to get Mother's polish and a microfiber cloth. Yes, it takes a hot minute, but the outcome is just fantastic. Now, I use jewelry polishing compounds and a dremel. I don't build allot of guitars but I refret every guitar I buy.
Thanks for the tip on the pole saw, I found one on Amazon for $20 that looks very nice
hot tip: if you have access to a bass drum you're allowed to mark up a bit, you can make your own radius sanding block by taping sandpaper onto the outside of the bass drum and using it to sand the profile into a piece of medium-hard wood like oak. gives you access to (24/2)=12" (22/2)=11" and (20/2)=10" radiuses, which are perhaps a bit shallow for electric guitars but are nice for acoustic guitars. other sizes of drum work too. keep in mind that most drums are a little smaller in diameter than the number they say they are.
for a bass drum that's been in use for a while, make sure to do this between the lugs that are pointing diagonally when the drum is in its normal position. old bass drums tend to be kinda squashed into ovals in the direction of gravity from having to hold two rack toms up all the time, so the diagonal is going to be the closest to the original curvature of the drum.
What about a big pot?
Nice share on tips, tricks, secrets & hacks. Your advice is more than helpful along with explainations & reasons WHY as well with HOW. Being a inventor as well as builder, it all validates your teaching skills on luthiery.
I love your brain Tim.
Oh I forgot...
AND... your giving heart of service.
You understand that wisdom is gained only by applying knowledge.
And you understand giving and receiving.
And you know that the teacher usually learns more than the students... via teaching.
Keep it coming please.
Thank you!
You're my brother.
Love you man.
Happy holidays to you and the fam.
Thanks for this great video Tim! The high end tools are great if you are doing a large volume of work, especially professionally on fine and expensive instruments. Your tips are perfect for most of my needs where I am working on my own gear and don't expect perfection.
You're awesome, thank you so very much.