Vacation has been great. It's given me a chance to take care of
a lot of small things and this is one.
Didn't want it bolted in place so now it's useable and mobile.
 
I'm posting for those that haven't seen one.
This is a fret press. I think it is great and I believe it's much
better than hammering frets.
 
I like my fretboards/necks to be straight...very straight...since they
are then pressing can mean very little fret work. Fret wire itself is
an issue because it isn't precision made. I've read about some made
in Germany that is but I haven't used any yet.
 
I also like to add some glue to the frets and a nice feature of this
press is that one can lock it in place.
Yes, being consistant with the amount of force is a good thing.
 
The shelf is removable and I do not use it when building a neck thru.
  
 
 I took this shot so you could see the brass
insert that presses on the fret.
They are easily changed out for desired radius.
 
I haven't built a compound radius neck yet but
I'll be hammering the frets in when I do.
 
 
                   

Thanks Spacey.

I'm guessing frets aren't precision made because they expect you to take a file to them no matter how consistently they make the raw material. ???


best regards,
mike

My opinions are based on a very short experience of hands-on.

For the most part, with the fret wire I've handled, I thought it was.

You know it goes through quite a bit of abuse even using the press
rather than hammering.

Mike I do know that if the neck/fretboard is worked to a precision
level that it is very possible to require minimum fret work.

The biggest bummer I've seen after working a fretboard to "perfect"
flatness (just beautiful when checking with a precision flatbar) was
a section of the fret wire that didn't have a uniform crown height and a
couple of the frets were lower than the rest.
When dealing with thousanths of an inch when leveling the crown one
can understand not being able to detect the variance by sight when
installing.
With that said, precision crown height and width could sure save some
aggrevation. One doesn't enjoy having to remove a fret and possibly
chipping a fretboard.

I think I was reading about Heritage guitars and they had a press that
pressed in all the frets in one shot. Man I'd like to see that. Frets can
tilt or roll while inserting the tang in the groove and for them to press
all of them at once...I'd like to see how they prepare them before the pressing.
It seems to me that one pressing for all of the frets would be the ultimate method.
That method with precision wire and a well made board...very cool and I
believe those guys designed the press and may be the only ones installing
them like that...but I don't know.

More coffee.

I've drawn wire by hand.

Gold is fun, you can take a small blob and make a really long filament out of it.

I imagine with steel that it is difficult to draw a large quantity with high precision but it is possible to make steel extrusion with high precision IF you are willing to go to great expense. I'm imagining some follow up forging processes and perhaps some milling.


Yes, one stop fret installation seems like it could be clean and effective.


best regards,
mike

Interesting stuff all fascinating thanks.