It would be helpful what this group is doing regarding fret glues, no glue, wicked-in thin CA, slot fill medium CA +/- acceleration, aliphatic? What do folks like/dislike and why? Do you practice differently bound vs unbound? How do you minimize cleanup after thin CA? Does it matter acoustically if the frets are glued? It adds time and the risk of a CA mess to the job … Thanks
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I use thin CA, which I apply with a tiny plastic pipette (I make the end that forms the drops even smaller by pulling on it with a pair of pliers and cutting the end clean with fret nippers). These a…
Hello- does anybody on here have access to a trans-trem equipped Steinberger who could measure the location of the trem cavity for me? Like the distance from the zero-fret to the front edge of the trem unit perhaps? That would be great!
Can’t find anything online. Apparently there’s a website that has schematics of one but it’s all in German. So if you speak German that might work too!
Hi everyone,
Every once in a while, I come across a bass that simply refuses to stop buzzing.
Right now, I’m working on a bass (I won't name the brand, but it’s in the €2,500 range) that has a slight fretboard hump near the neck pocket. I figured that was the culprit, so I performed a fret level under string tension. The frets are now perfectly level... yet, it continues to buzz across the entire fretboard, even with fairly high a…
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After further testing on a bass with the same issue, I discovered that in some basses, the neck has a specific resonant frequency. This causes the neck to vibrate, making the string move erratically.…
Hi all, new to nut slot work world, please can you help me with this mystery?
fret levelling, neck relief and string action adjustment all completed to Fender 9.5" radius spec. very happy with that. the next step: 0.011” High E string’s nut slot was a bit low.
I used Dave Johnson’s (MI Guitar Craft Academy) “q-tip slot raising method”: the pulled cotton strand, plus extra thin CA glue, to fill the slot, then trim it off once dry,…
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i always use a nut file that is the closest size up from the string gauge. i used a 13 gauge file for an 11 gauge string, and 16 gauge file for a 14 gauge string
I have a customer with a guitar that has an intonation issue. It plays flat at the first and second fret on the D and G string. The factory spec says its a 25.5 scale but I measure from the nut to the 12th fret 12 5/8. I plugged the number for a 25.25 scale into the Stew Mac fret board calculator and the measurement is off from the nut to the first fret. Unfortunately I now longer have the guitar in my possession so I cant tell you exac…
Any way for you to get the instrument back for those measurements? One thing about the compensated nut, is it suggests some factory tinkering with intonation more broadly. It's not uncommon for intona…
Hi,
thanks for this great resource. This is my first post here. I work on my own instruments and have little experience with advanced repairs. Recently I acquired a ca. 78 Sigma DR28H. I bought it because it sounded great and came with a pickup installed. I wanted something for open mics and gigging. With light strumming it sounded fine but I found some buzzing when I took it to a jam.
I made a nut and saddle , adjusted the truss…
Hello everyone,
I hope you're doing good. I'm very much a new guitar repair enthusiast, any advice or feedback would really appreciated.
I'm working on this Yamaha FG410A, as you can see, it's in rough shape. The guitar lived in a case in a storage container since the 90s.
The guitar was really dry when I got it, so I started my slowly introducing moisture. I removed the frets and then put the guitar in a bag, with a hygrometer…
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I think your approach makes sense. You will learn much from this project. I am sure you will discover creative ways to fix problems. I have used the saw dust CA glue method to fix divots in the fin…
Can anyone recommend a good substitute for Johnson's Paste Wax? We're down to about 1/3 of a can, and it appears that it's no longer being manufactured, and I'm not too keen on paying some of the prices I've seen around online.
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We use it on fingerboards and bridges for conditioning. It also repels glue when you're doing a refret (just don't let it in the slots).
I’m about to do my first ebony fingerboard replacement and wondered if there was any advice, compared with rosewood fingerboard construction. I plan to use the small aluminum jig and fret saw to cut the slots manually, indexing off the old fingerboard. Thanks for any advice or encouragement!
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Dan, your generous advice is much appreciated. I'm all repair at this point, and have refretted a couple of dozen necks but still feel like an amateur! If you have time, can you mention which glues you…
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I finished levelling frets on a mandolin last week, and was surprised that the frets with the worst divots worked down to .020" Had I known that I'd go that low, I might have replaced them, but it's hard to measure divot height, especially those caused by thin strings.
I haven't seen much discussion on standards for fret height or guidelines to know at what point should I switch from levelling to replacement. What standards are peop…
I’ve found for most guitar players anything below .030” starts to get into refret territory. Might be different for mandolins though, I don’t work on many of those. I have a client that loves the fret…
I don't know when it's from. This one differs from the other one I did, which was much more traditional looking (down to the 70s martin hollow tube neck support). Nothing surprising... pocket is directly under the fret slot.