Fretting the Guitar.

It is time to install the frets on the guitar. The fret slots need to be chamfered at the mouth to ease the installation. This will also make a future re-fret easier. If you look closely, you can see that the slot on the left is a bit wider looking than the slot on the right. I have opened the top of the slot a bit with a triangular file.

 

 

 

 

The triangular file in action.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have taken a piece of fretwire and bent it to use as a depth guage. Here you can see the shape of the fretwire in its long axis.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hammering in the fretwire.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Trimming the fretwire.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One fret in!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eighteen more to do….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All the frets are in. I left the wire long as I hammered each fret and trimmed after the hammering was done. The long part of the fretwire was vibrating as I was hammering and set off a very nice sounding tone from the guitar. It is the first time I heard the “voice” of the guitar.

 

 

 

 

The trimmed fretwire is overlong and very sharp. I now will file each wire on both sides for length and comfort.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fretted guitar after quite a bit of flattening, fileing, and rounding of the frets.