I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate changing frets with an abhorrence that defies
all reason. My wife knows to get out of the house as fast as possible when she
sees me getting out a new set of frets, because she's learned that a few
moments later a flurry of frothy-mouthed, red-faced, apoplectic cursing will
ensue. I've just never been able to get the hang of fretting. After years of
putting frets on multiple instruments, I still usually need to put on every
fret two or more times. As I repeatedly clip off unsatisfactory attempts and
try again, I watch my supply of available fret gut slowly dwindling and begin
to feel a little like James Bond in that scene in Goldfinger when the laser
beam is inching up slowly between his legs. ("Do you expect me to settle for
buzzing notes!?" I ask Gutfinger defiantly. "No, Mr Wilke," responds Gutfinger
with a surplus of glee, "I expect you to cancel your concerts because you won't
be able to practice properly for weeks
without that missing 6th fret gauge you ineptly used up due to your utter
incompetence in the Most Skillful Art of Frettery!!!" Wow. That was dramatic.)
In the I end content myself with frets that bow, sag and wiggle under my
fingers like earthworms. I shim even the new ones, but still end up buzzing
like a bee and dealing with "surprise temperaments." Yes, I know. I'm pathetic.
Chris
Dr. Christopher Wilke D.M.A.
Lutenist, Guitarist and Composer
www.christopherwilke.com
--------------------------------------------
On Sun, 2/9/14, Dan Winheld <[email protected]> wrote:
Subject: [LUTE] Re: How to cut fret shims.
To: "alexander" <[email protected]>, "Herbert Ward"
<[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]
Date: Sunday, February 9, 2014, 6:35 PM
"I could whittle with a utility
knife, but
that would be wasteful and time consuming."
"I find that a surgical saw, something like what one can
find even on
Amazon (Satterlee Bone Saw 13") is an ideal tool. A very
thin blade with sharp teeth. Just make sure you do not cut
yourself in the process... It is actually ideal for many
uses with wood, bone and plastics."
Guys,
Why would either of you go to all that bother, rather than
merely replacing the fret? Of course, an emergency situation
(5 minutes before show time, during rehearsal, or stuck out
somewhere beyond easy reach of the postal service & no
spare gut) is another story.
I could remove & replace 10 gut frets in the time it
would take you to whittle a single proper shim out of a "1/2
inch by 1/2 inch by 10 inches ( 1cm x 1cm x 20cm)" piece of
anything. That is, single frets. The more traditional
doubles (still routinely used by the viol players) would
take a little more time.
Fret changing is not hard at all, once you've done a few and
get into the rhythm of it. Soon you will be getting them so
tight that you will have to back off to keep from breaking
the thinner ones, and even that big, bad 1st fret will only
take the slightest more aggression to make as tight as
necessary. Thomas Mace has a pretty good tutorial on frets,
as I remember. So does Dan Larson on his website, and no
doubt there are others easily available. Catch me at the
right time I'll do it for you, and show you how. A cigarette
lighter, fingernail clippers, and maybe (strictly optional)
a small pliers for the 1st fret.
The business with the surgical saw is what I paid a
professional luthier to do recently when I had bone body
frets put on my lute- frets 10 & up. He messed up my 9th
& 8th frets leveling the new bone frets, and it took me
3 minutes or less to replace them practically under his nose
in the shop.
Happy fretting! (It almost gets fun)
Dan
> I could whittle with a utility knife, butthat would be
wasteful and time consuming.
alexander r.
To get on or off this list see list information at
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
