Fret pullers and other animals - Guitar Building Tricks and Tips

RE: Fret pullers and other animals

Tej — Tue, 29 Jun 2021 06:31:56 +0000

I would suggest the fretting hammer made by Summit and sold at Tonetech

@mattbeels forgot to say, thanks for the recommendation it worked a treat 🙂

RE: Fret pullers and other animals

Rocknroller912 — Sun, 02 May 2021 22:54:04 +0000

@tej

Here is the link plus one on the knife it might be mentioned in both.

https://youtu.be/wtp4B03Pi0s

https://youtu.be/rv8ZXpsAwp8

Hope you have got Aldi out of your system, their advertising blurb is as infectious as Covid. Don’t be fooled again, ha ha I think that’s a line from Roger Daltrey.

RE: Fret pullers and other animals

Tej — Sun, 02 May 2021 21:17:19 +0000

You could still rescue your pliers if you have a good blow lamp by using the above process.

@rocknroller912 got consigned to the tip with the Aldi doom router as they just chipped. Have you got a link to said video?

RE: Fret pullers and other animals

Rocknroller912 — Sun, 02 May 2021 20:26:45 +0000

@tej

You could still rescue your pliers if you have a good blow lamp by using the above process. Good practice. Watch Mark’s video.

RE: Fret pullers and other animals

Tej — Sun, 02 May 2021 20:01:37 +0000

@jonhodgson @rocknroller912 Thanks guys, appreciate the guidance, clearly need to take more care next time I do similar 🙂 It didn’t help only having access to a mini grinder as trying to get the end flat was tricky to say the least. Anyway, good to know what went wrong!

RE: Fret pullers and other animals

Rocknroller912 — Sun, 02 May 2021 19:16:46 +0000

@tej

Jon is correct. Heating metal goes though colours - blue, yellow, red then white. Hardening is done by heating to cherry red then quenching in oil as Mark demonstrated on the live stream making a bent chisel. Then heat behind the sharp end to straw colour and quench again to temper the edge. Blue can be used to give some rust protection as used on gun metal. Harder means brittle so it’s a balance.

To work metal you heat to cherry red and let go cold slowly which softens it called annealing. The go through the hardening process. Sorry if you know this.

RE: Fret pullers and other animals

Jonathan Hodgson — Sun, 02 May 2021 18:30:38 +0000

@tej sounds to me like you let the metal get too hot.

Unless you're grinding HSS tools you need to make sure things don't get hot, if it changes colour then you've compromised the hardening.

RE: Fret pullers and other animals

Tej — Sun, 02 May 2021 17:54:47 +0000

@rocknroller912 so immediately the difference between the home ground ones I made and those is the metal on mine took on a sort of rainbow colouration, clearly not present on yours suggesting I did “something” differently 🤔

RE: Fret pullers and other animals

Rocknroller912 — Sun, 02 May 2021 17:48:54 +0000

@tej

These are my fret pullers that I mentioned earlier.

6197

RE: Fret pullers and other animals

Tej — Sun, 02 May 2021 17:22:58 +0000

You’re probably not getting into the business of refrets so you don’t need an expensive pair.

@mattbeels I only need them for regretting 1 guitar but I love the neck on it and really don’t want to wreck it. Mark suggested for refrets to put masking tape either side of the fret so you have the chips in the right place and can easily glue them back, I’ve also seen metal plates that come with the nippers (from stew Mac) where the plate slides either side of the fret, not clear which would be preferable as with the latter the chips would likely be smaller but you’d have more pot luck putting them back in the right place. I had a neck off a donor guitar where I tried taking the frets off it, that came out relatively cleanly but it was evident there was no glue. The ones I want to refret are definitely glued too.
Is the only need for tang nippers if I wanted to make a bound fretboard?