Official Luthiers Forum!

I saw this video and I got this weird idea...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYphOR0Jegw

What if I went and made myself a DIY diamond fret file? I mean how hard can it be?

Turns out diamond powder isn't expensive from Aliexpress and I can just make a slot into a piece of wood or plastic, coat it in epoxy, sprinkle diamond powder into it, and use it as a fret file. Ideally I'd make something like this: https://www.stewmac.com/luthier-tools-a ... -file.html

I could even make a slot the piece of wood or plastic by taking a piece of fretwire, and cover the crown with sandpaper, and use that fretwire to make a slot that fits that exact fret profile.

Check back for progress (I have to get the diamond powder first)

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Some pretty good problem solving in the video.
I wonder if you could make some nut slotting files using the diamond powder and a set of feeler gauges? You might have to back them up with homemade wood handles similar to what Stew Mac offers, but it still might be worthwhile.

I see that Amazon has it in various grits:
https://www.amazon.com/400-Grit-Diamond ... e2d7674-f3

I looked on Taobao, about 5 dollars per 100 carat bag. I don't think it's expensive at all considering it's diamond. I think 300-400 grit will do.

I don't really need to make nut files right now, I have a set, but if push comes to shove and I need nut files (because I lost them or something), I can buy some flat mini files and use a surface grinder to grind it to size, anneal it in a forge (I just figured out how to do this), machine to size, then cut and reharden. It's actually easier than I thought. But acetylene torch tip cleaners will work as a nut file too.

I was really thinking of annealing a mill bastard file and then machine a groove into one edge and then cut them to use as fret file. But I realized that even annealed, a file is still a bit hard, and trying to cut teeth inside concave cavity is not going to be easy (making the cavity is the easy part, ball end mill will do, and once annealed they will machine easily). I managed to anneal and recut a modified triangular file I have to see how it's done and I found out that pounding a chisel into an annealed file is harder than I thought, so I cut it with a modified feather file by sawing back and forth. Will see if this has resharpened it.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

After cutting the teeth into the annealed file, you should re-harden it, if you expect the edges to last.

That goes without saying... hardening is easier because all you have to do is heat it until red then drop it in water. Then reheat it to temper.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

To anneal all you have to do is heat it to red and then let it slowly cool. Neither process is hard. Probably the hardest part is the tempering process because you need to hit 600 degrees (plus or minus) which is hard to judge, unless you have an oven that can go this high.

We are talking deep metallurgy here, guys. If you really want to educate yourselves - get a copy of The Machinist Handbook. It's a thick tome, packed with info - but all you need to do here is read the part about metallurgy. It will take some time to completely digest it - more than an hour, less than a month. Be prepared to cogitate on it for awhile.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I thought machinist handbook is just a bunch of charts about what drill bit size to use and all that.

I mean ideally it would be nice if I could anneal files to so soft that you could just about knead it like clay... then harden it to set it.

How are files made anyways?

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Not that I've done it, but google is your friend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOw9WqMOHjA

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Good video.

The guy did everything by hand, and it's amazing. I won't try to case harden anything but it gave me a bunch of ideas to resurrect old files, or create custom ones. I just have to figure out how to anneal them. I did successfully anneal a triangular file but the biggest challenge I had was finding a chisel. I used a HSS turning blank for this but it didn't seem hard enough to make much of a dent in even annealed file.

The milling machine is useful for a lot of things, not only for milling metal to shape (so no time consuming hand shaping is necessary) but it also serves as a good anvil for pounding stuff. I mean it's a 4000lb piece of cast iron.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

MY BAD. Machinery's Handbook. Shame on me - I've had mine since the mid-80's, along with the handbook for the handbook. Not kidding - a smaller handbook for "operating" the big handbook.

Extremely useful if you have ANY mechanical interests. This book not only could aid luthiers in building better instruments, but building better tools for the task, developing better techniques for the shop, etc.

Now up to their 31st edition (comes in PDF and other internet-centric versions).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machinery%27s_Handbook

https://books.industrialpress.com/machinery-handbook/

For those of you who have seen (or own) a Kennedy or Gerstner toolbox - the large center drawer with the deep well is literally sized for the Machinery's Handbook - not for storing loose change, pens and pencils, etc.

https://cdn.mscdirect.com/global/images ... 615-11.jpg

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

You know I asked my neighbor about machinist handbook (he runs a CNC shop, just producing knockoff version of some motorcycle parts) and he was straight up dismissive of it. He said you don't need to look up on a handbook to see what size drill to drill for what size tap, you can just "guesstimate" it. But I don't know if he's saying this because he doesn't like some autistic guy talking about tables and charts, or he just simply don't care about the machinist handbook. I realize CNC machining isn't the easiest thing to do as well...

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Don't think a a 4000lb piece of cast iron is on my shopping list.....

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Tai - you can tell your neighbor for me that he is an idiot. Machinists don't guesstimate. They know to look it up. Doesn't have to be a Machinery Handbook, or a Carr Lane book, or whatever. Most drill bit and tap makers make pocket charts with all the numbers you need to know.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

I'm with Chris. First time you guesstimate a drill size for a tap and the tap breaks you'll have paid for the time and effort to look up a lot of things. When I was real young I was a guesstimate kind of guy then I became an aircraft mechanic and turned into a look-it-up kind of guy.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

To be fair he only seems to ever machine aluminum... so maybe it's harder to break a tap when CNC machining aluminum because everything is set with certain parameters, so if something breaks it would have happened right away. I guess for him whatever parameters worked for him so he thought it was a waste of time for me to talk about the machinist handbook...

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com