I've been away from the workbench with a virus for a while but I'm back at it today. Join me in testing 3 different types of wax to prevent glue sticking to the fretboard when gluing in frets.
Bees wax will easily dissolve down to a paste with turpentine or similar solvent. I have often used it on my workbench tops because it's a little stickier than furniture waxes. I personally use Clapham’s beeswax products for most of my finishing. Roger Clapham (who happens to be a friend and client of mine) developed his products in collaboration with famed furniture builder James Krenov and the Smithsonian Institute to develop the best possible formulations for both builders and historical restoration and maintenance.
Ear wax works just fine! just don't tell whoever owns the instrument unless they love the ear wax toannn!! Been saving mine up in a Jar for 4 years, almost have enough for a half a mandolin board! In all seriousness I am glad that I have a tin of renaissance wax on me for protecting antique pipes and really glad that I found this video / channel. Cool work! Subbed!
You mixed up which wax was on which section of the block several times throughout the video. 5:45: You applied the waxes, from left to right with the darker grain facing the top of the screen, Johnson / Renaissance / beeswax. 7:26: block is rotated 180 from where it started. 9:28: transposed location of Johnson's and Beeswax, which continued throughout most of the rest of the video; 13:55: suddenly the Johnson is in the middle and the Renaissance is on the left (which is actually the beeswax); 14:23: when you say the beeswax is 'not really so good', you're really talking about the Johnson's. The beeswax is on the other end of the block. Wasn't expecting a game of 3 card monte when I clicked on this video, but it's been fun all the same. 👍👍
In the building course I took we used paste wax but it had to be applied fresh, no applying it and leaving it for a period of time and then gluing, don,t remember but I think turtle wax or similar, also used renaissance for some things, but it was ca glue that we used for gluing.
Do you apply the wax before or after the frets have been hammered down or pressed into place? I ask because it seems to me in either method, one would need to be very careful not to allow any of the wax to get into the fret slots or on the fret tangs. Otherwise the glue will not bond properly to the wood and or the fret tangs. I'd like to see a vid on how you would avoid that potential problem. Thanks!
The next video, where I install the frets I address this. I like to wax after the frets are in. This way I won't really have much chance of getting the wax into the fret tang slot. Since the wax isn't a liquid it won't run into the slot. So, theoretically you could get away with doing it either way, in my opinion. Just keep the wax on the surface. Wipe in on lengthwise to the slot and it won't be scraped into the slot.
