Installing the Frets (Ep 21 - Acoustic Guitar Build) 

I just did a partial refret on my old Flatiron mandolin today-- the first 7 frets. I took my time and did as good of a job as I could. I leveled them with a fine grit DMT diamond sharpening stone, tho it's plastic and found all the frets up to the 14th weren't totally as level as I had thought when I built it back in '95. I crowned them with a Nicholson 3 corner file and a StewMac crowning file to make sure they were perfectly round. Then I polished them to 1000 grit silicon carbide paper. I figured that was good enough for me. It took a little over three hours. I was in no hurry and my tomatoes got a bit of daylight shade as well. It will be a real pleasure playing on new frets after all these years now that I can play tunes like I want. A good day -- productive ! Getting closer to gardening time in Montana, too. Much yet to do.

Great work so far, the patience is paying off. Thanks for the video and showing us detailed work. Keep them coming. I will be waiting to see what the finished product looks and sounds like.

loved that adjustable leg thingy you made for support! great idea!

Thanks for posting this. Very helpful for those of us trying our hand at a little luthier work. I am trying to restore an old mandolin to decently playable condition for fun, and one major step has been sanding the fingerboard to cut the excess neck relief and refretting. When I started trying to get the first fret in, I had some trouble getting the sucker to seat, so thanks for showing a good technique!

Your amazing brother

Adam I wonder in what video I can watch how you make the fretboard flat ?

Thanks for such well put video! Quick question. Why not put the glue along the entire length of the fret? Thinking long term here, if only glued on at the ends, the wood shrinking over the time can cause the middle of the frets to start popping out, can’t it?

Personally, I put the frets into the board before flying the fretboard onto the neck. Much easier.

What is the common fret wire sized for an acoustic?

no need to level the frets after installing them!?

Can't wait to hear you play that bad boy! What are you going to use to finish it?

Couldn't help but notice you installed the frets after gluing the neck to the body.....not that I've tried it either way or anything but wouldn't it be easier to install them before attaching the neck? Had you considered that, if so what factors influenced the decision to attach the neck first?

Nice job installing those frets Adam. BTW, when I installed the frets on my build, I used thinned out Hide glue. Then if the frets ever need to be changed, it's just a matter of heating the frets & they easily pull out. Anyway, that's just what I did........... :)

Why not install the frets befor attaching the neck to body? Charlie Plant

if the fret aren't straight, mean a little bend to left .. is there a solution for it without removing the fret ? .. i mean like pushing it with hammer or something ?

Hi Gentleman, which is the size that you use to re-fret an acoustic guitar, becouse I used 2.9 mm but they are tall and the guitar is hard to play. Best regards

I bought a guitar and i notice there one fretwire not fully embedded in the fretboard.. is it safe i hammer it down myself? Im afraid of cracking the fretboard and its my new guitar. Btw its electric.

Won’t you have to level the frets of through the length of the neck? Otherwise you’ll be buzzing everywhere if you play it.

Nice demo... I broke my fret board :’)

How many feet of fretwire did you need?

What a great video. It's a shame I had to dig around in youtube for SO damn long before finding your video. All the other ones are just stoners taking 8 minutes to actually get to the point 😜

Next time get the brass pressing dye build or buy the fixture for your drill press. Pressin the 1st fret and the 3rd fretthen the second fret. Then use the fret rockers from the stewmac straiggt edge set and compare the 3 frets press down the one that uneven continue on like this carefully checking the height of each fret leveling them one to the other. I did this on the last bass i built and i had absolutely NO LEVELING AND RECROWNING TO DO!!! Just round the ends and play it. That leveling and crowning is a waste of time, press, dont hammer...

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