Beginners Guide on how to install Frets and do all the Fretwork on a (new) Guitar Neck.
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- Опубліковано 14 тра 2024
- A very in depth look into my methods for installing frets in a Guitar Neck and all the fretwork needed to get perfect frets on a Guitar.
In this 'How to install frets' video I'm explaining how I go about installing and preparing the frets in my guitar necks.
I show you how I recut and clean the fret-slots, how to prepare and install the frets using both a fretting hammer and a fret press and how to level, re-crown en end-dress the frets.
This video is aimed at the beginner guitar builders who are building their first guitar and like to know more on how to install their frets, but even more experienced guitar makers may find some useful information in this video.
Use the chapters to browse this video to the topics you like to learn more about:
0:00 Intro
0:14 Re-cutting Fret-slots
1:05 Fret-slot Bevel
3:10 Cleaning Fret-slots
4:13 Radiusing Fret wire
8:29 Cutting Fret wire
10:55 Installing Frets
14:42 Filling the Gaps
22:05 Side dots
24:17 Fret end bevel
27:45 Fret end dressing part 1
31:44 Straightening the Neck
33:27 Leveling the Frets
43:57 Re-crowning the Frets
48:03 Fret end dressing part 2
49:48 Polishing the Frets
56:14 Outro
Interested in more guitar building related videos?
Check out my channel for more tips and tricks, tool reviews and guitar builds for the (beginner) luthier in a small workshop.
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Daniel: In the past I've built over 300 models ranging from Tanks to ships, from airplanes to submarines. Now I know what you're thinking, "What does this have to do with installing frets?" Well, one of the tips I learned was how to apply super glue in micro amounts. If you Take a piece of wire, I use a trash bag twisty tie with the plastic scrapped off, twist this wire around the needle of a safety pin all the way to give you a nice little handle. When you slide the wire off the safety pin, you should have a tiny little eyelet that will hold a tiny amount of superglue. and if you clip the eyelet open, superglue will flow out much easier. Clean any buildup on your eyelet with a candle. This little tool will allow you to apply a tiny amount of superglue wherever you need with very little clean up. P.S. Love your content! Very informative and inspiring. Thank you 😁
I'm having a hard time picturing this concept. Is there any chance you can upload a video showcasing your little contraption? Sounds useful.
Ditto man...👍
Absolutely outstanding tutorial! I don’t usually leave comments but sir you deserve to be recognized. I’m definitely inspired by your attention to detail and plan to incorporate some of your techniques in my fret work.
i agree hes a legend
Over 53 years of part-time playing and loving it (but having to work non-musical jobs), I have accumulated a number of guitars including some from friends who have passed on. It’s been a labor of love to do my own setups and maintenance, and now I find my attentions moving to fretwork. This video, among other resources I am reading and watching, is invaluable. Thank you beyond words.
I have a J200 copy from Alvarez. It was such a beautiful sounding guitar. The frets were soft and the strings made flat spots on the first four or five, and the bridge came loose. I have the bridge ready to glue, I’m looking for a way to do the frets myself. I’m meticulous on the fine work. Cannot tolerate crap work. If I have to make every tool, I want my guitar back! Thank you for this outstanding video and instructions. You’re a great friend!
When did you learn to sand a little more the last few frets in a downward slope? That is an expert level tip.
Man, those "bullet-like" frets shown in detail at the very end are a thing of beauty.
Hey man, this is a great video, spectacular, with lots of details and secrets, thank you very much!!!
Thank you. I literally did my fender while watching your video. I would send a video, but you tube is not that advanced I could send a victory video!!
Hi Chad,
You're welcome.
Nice to learn my content is helping you with your project.
First time guitar builder...I would be lost without your videos Daniel!
This is the most comprehensive video on fret work I have seen on UA-cam. I have seen so called "Luthiers" make a complete hash of the fret job from sheer laziness, lack of technique or reluctance to show the whole process. Thank you for this.
This is what most of manufacturers of mass market guitars don’t do: to lower frets 17-22(24). Thank you for the lesson. It’s very useful for any person who likes guitars )
Best fret tutorial.
Fantastic tutorial. Step by step, clear understandable information. It shows exactly how to do the work, without cutting of the edges. This video shows it all. Most of all, it show to strive for perfection, and how to do that exactly! Thanks!
Oh those bullet fret ends are classy👍
Hi Edad,
Thank you!
I wish I had watched your video earlier. I purchased an electric guitar (Donner), and the frets were very sharp and left my finger scratched and scored when sliding down the fret board. Instead of sending the guitar back: I tried to smooth the frets using a file and scratched the neck and fret wires with gouges. Now I have to replace all fret wires and try to smooth the edges of the fret board. After watching your video I am sure that I can correct my mistakes. Thanks for taking the time in sharing this video, God bless!
This guy can re-fret my guitars anytime.... He is very good at what he does..Great job
Best video on the UA-cam
Just finished the fret work on my second build... I referred to your video several times and it got me through to what I believe is a very good fret job... I think what you instilled in your video (and now in me) is taking your time, having a commitment to detail, enjoying the process and a job well done! You Sir are a great teacher and Luthier!
I seldom subscribe after watching one video, but this was very good and detailed.
It's also obvious you enjoy paying attention to details.
Amazing necks! However I would strongly suggest using a syringe to inject the super glue into the fret sides rather than dripping it in. Love the idea of putting some wood dust over the fret slot when finished though. Looks so finished and fine. Thanks for the advice and help. Great video. Cheers.
I really like a craftsman that makes his own gigs. Good job.
Thats a hell of a dutch accent! 😂
Great video, dude! Keep up the good work 👍
Brilliant tutorial as always. Just did my frets, very carefully with the sanding beam no pressure applied, checked with the fret rocker and literally no level frets🙃. I'm not ruling out the fret rocker being duff, got a decent one on order.
Awesome video, I have never seen someone going into so much detail on the process and sharing that many useful information.
Hey man great job of going over your fret install process start to finish .This is the most crucial and critical step of guitar building no doubt. I’ve done all my own guitar neck refrets for years now ,starting by trail and error on cheaper guitar models with cheap junk frets and replacing them with the EVO gold frets which I like better than nickel or stainless. Not the easiest to work with but still probably 3-5x times the life of nickel and much easier to deal with than working with the stainless frets . Once one has the skills and process down for fret jobs and cutting nuts properly on guitars , the ability to create or transform any guitar to its true playing capabilities is possible. I’ve transformed some very inexpensive guitars into some of the best playing and sounding guitars I’ve ever played or owned . Of coarse I’m talking completely replacing all the guitar components but the body and neck , if they are decent , adequate or better and sinking probably no more than 250.00 to 400.00 or so at a minimum up to whatever you want to spend . One of my favorite guitars is a 100.00 Monoprice Tele from Amazon I bought and spent around 350.00 on for all the stuff to transform that thing into a player worthy of outstanding playability and sound that most think they need to spend a lot of money for . It’s always interesting to see how many people approach the fret job process so differently and I learned great stuff from watching your vid , so thanks for your time and service to all who can appreciate the skill of such an undertaking, because it’s not an easy task to build or rebuild guitars either from scratch or as a parts assembly into a guitar that plays at the top level of building and quality. Thanks brother and may you continue your success in building great guitars 😎👍
Great stuff!
Thanks for the video 😊
Superb job. Thanks!
Such a detailed and useful tutorial Daniel, thank you!
Excellent video!
What an awesome and detailed video!! Thanks so much for taking the time to do this!!!
Awesome video. Thanks for sharing.
Really great. Very clear and informative. Thanks a lot!
Thank You sir! I started building guitars about three years ago...I watch lots of videos...most I give little notice, but yours I watch 100%. Great job my friend!
Thanks a million.That was the most thorough tutorial I had seen !!!
Great work! Great video skills!
Brilliant video. Subscribed!
Outstanding guide. thanks :)
Very good work and very good video! Thank you!
Absolutely incredible, informative video; all the details and no filler. Bravo!
Good video and thanks for sharing
Fantastic video, thank you.
Most excellent presentation. Detailed. Thoughtful. Greatly appreciated!!
Very good video, very well explained job, thank you!
Very nice detailing work done with care. Those that decide to get one of your guitars are very lucky.
Very professional job
thx for this detailed video. almost a workshop. awesome!
Thank you for your video, for me is very useful, Thanks again!
Marvellously meticulous insight to your skills!
Awesome vid, so much detail on tool use, the way you explain it I can imagine and understand the feel and visual checks you use with your tools. Now I have excuses (errr, reasons) to buy more tools :-)😀🤩😇
Outstandinglygoodpresentation🎸👍🤟
Great video! Really helpful! People like you sharing your hard earned knowledge in an easy to follow way are true heroes!
Nice video, very thorough. Like some of your very detailed tips, like cutting the fretwire with the tang.
thank you very much for making this video my friend! that shop looks like a very nice place to spend time.
Thank you very much. This was so very straightforward and helpful.
It's a kind of fun to notice that professionals pretty much do very similar things on frets, that I had to figure out for myself a few decades ago, way before internet...
One thing here hurts my eye a bit though: I don't know how everybody else feels but I wouldn't go anywhere near frets with 120-grit papers. As I recall, I used the finest cutting file I could find on my first fret job ever and some after that. Lately I have used 600 or higher grit sanding paper. Finished with 2500 and then "polished" with steel wool. It s not quite like a machine polish but the idea is to "micro hammer" already tiny grind marks flat, so it's friendlier to strings.
But who am I to say? Probably half a dozen to ten fret jobs (re-frets or just leveling) in 40ish years so not that many really. :)
Very informative and absolutely perfectly explained. Thank you very much
I’ve watched this several times as a guide and it has massively helped me. Thank you so much for making this!
Millions of thanks
Very instructive video Dany!!! Cool
Hi Julian,
Thank you very much for the compliment!
Fantastic! Subscribed!
Gr8 video!🎯
Hey, you got a nice pond out there with fishes! Also very informative and throughout video, thank you!
Amazing job bro!!!!!!!!
Awesome video as always, so helpful and great presenting
Hi Charles,
Thank you very much!
Nice to hear you are getting some useful information from my videos.
Thanks for the very informative video, much appreciated 👍 I really like the stainless steel fret position markers you do. Very cool look!
Another great tutorial, I really learned a lot! Keep them coming mate!
Hey Phil,
Thank you very much.
And I'll do my best to keep making videos.
Dude, that’s a killer neck. The different woods laminated, shape of headstock, etc. very cool.
Working on my 3rd build, but my first neck. Thank you for your patience and thoroughness when explaining each step.
you make such great videos! thank you and keep up the good work!!!
Hey Optonaut,
Thank you very much!
Extremely well-done. Your expertise and skill to produce a quality neck is much more thorough than I ever imagined. Extremely well-done. Love the step-by-step approach. Jim Dunsmoor.
Amazing video, great tuition on a job that id normally of paid for but will certainly try myself now
Wow! Hands down, Best ive ever seen! Your just like me, meticulous and organized! Great video man! Thanks!
Bro, you ARE the fret-board Doctor.
I'm just in the middle of building my first guitar and over the time I've been trying to put it together I've come across your tutorials just too many times. Now I was watching this, telling myself "I'm not watching an hour of how to install frets." And after an hour I'm really glad I did.
Thanks. Great detail. Awesome tutorial. Chjeers
Congrats on hitting 3k! Love the in-depth fretting info. I learn something new every time I watch one of your videos.
Hey Mr. Waffles,
As always thank you very much!
Total perfection for sure , I appreciate the details on using tools like letting the weight of the tool do the work I’m still putting my list together to order from crimson but some tools I think I can bypass if I’m willing to take the time definitely got to get me a magnifier on fret ends I don’t how your focusing that small .your definitely an artisan 👍
That things a masterpiece
The filing of the so called "bullet ends" of the frets will try one's nerves and patience, but it is worth the effort to make this fret job approaching perfection.
You have given me the confidence to do my 89 Squire Strat that is too worn to play anymore. I’ve been thinking of doing it for a few weeks but now I’m off to see if I can pick up some cheap’ish tools on eBay. Thank you for this easy to follow tutorial.
Thank you SO MUCH.
Hey Chris,
You're welcome!!
I'm glad you got some useful information from my video.
Wow. That was an outstanding tutorial. I really appreciate your working through every step and showing how it can be done without access to many hundreds of dollars worth of specialized tools. I'm ready to get started on my guitars!
While looking for instruction vids on fretting a guitar, I stumbled into this one, and after 10 s I realized I finally found a fellow countryman making these kind of video's... :-)
Visited your website - beautiful stuff! Keep up the good work, and thanks for the video's, really helpful!
Thank you, Sir... impeccable work!!! I'm just starting out, and I have watched many videos on youtube, and other places... All have been good, but I've been intrigued to use a majority of your methods... Again, thank you so much, and I will be back as often as I can, hoping to learn more...
Great video. I have some frets to replace on one of my guitars. It's a bound fretboard though. Subscribed!
I could perceive that by using the press the fret entering the fret cavity would be less abrupt. And less likely to splinter the fret board....😎 Thanks very nice video.....
Thanks! I was struggling with pressing in frets. I'm adopting the steps in your progress. I struggle with the Martin small thin frets.
Hi Daniel, thank you so much for answering all our questions. Honestly you are very informative and give us so much confidence . you are the best, take care
Hi Gurup,
Thank you very much for your kind words.
And you're welcome. I really like answering the questions if I can.
That was amazing got to learn new tricks from you thank you 🙏 for making this video🤘🤘🤘 Aloha from Hawaii TigerLuv Guitars 🎸
thank you sir
This has to be the most indepth and outstanding fret work finishing video I have ever seen, thank you for this tutorial. Excellent work. I feel the need to cleanup the frets on a guitar i just purchased because the frets look NOTHING like yours wow.
Thanks for the video, Daniel. Your videos help so much as I'm planning to build guitars in the near future. I love wood working. I can use all the information I can get while I am acquiring the tools.
Hi Reprisal Within,
You're welcome. It's good to know you're getting some useful information from my videos.
Good luck and have fun building your guitars.
Thank You for very good video. I Have made a few guitars myself and fretting job is always the scary part of it. Thanks to this video I realised what I was doing wrong and how made my life harder.
veramente chiaro ed accurato, vorrei avere una chitarra così
you´re fretbender is cool! good idea! going to rebuild it for my use
Hi Optonaut,
Thank you.
Good luck building it!
Thank you so much for this tutorial. I'm trying my hand at refretting for the first time. It's an Ovation Applause that I bought in 1986. I've removed the frets without any tears (or tears for that matter). Your thorough and very detailed tutorial has given me the confidence to see it through to completion. (Refretting without regretting, hopefully) Thank you.
Man, those videos are super great. I am building my very first guitar and following your steps makes it much easier to understand what needs to be done and how...thank you Daniel...
Hi Radovan,
Thank you very much for the compliment.
Good to hear my videos are helping you with your guitar build.
Good luck with making your first guitar.
Excellent tutorial! THANKS. My favorite tip was the addition of the tape at the 12th fret(~42:50) to serve as a guide for sanding the fret drop off. Will use that one today on a custom Tele style i built.
I am preparing myself for my first refret job. So I go through a lot of refret videos.
It's interesting how so many videos show little details differently.
Thank you very much for producing such high quality content!
How did it go? I am gearing up now, buying a few more tools and supplies. Fingers crossed.
how did it go?
@@jairguitarrologia not done yet^^
@@phillosopherguitarist2673are you done yet?