Official Luthiers Forum!

i put stainless steel frets on my last guitar ...i'm in the process of putting them on 2 more. i love them. i think they look a little cooler. they feel much better when bending strings. and i presume my great grandchildren won't have to deal with re-fretting it. i suppose this topic is supposed to pertain to working with the stuff ....not my lineage.

here's what luthier's mercantile have to say about it:
"Our experience is that it is much harder on your tools. There are two schools of thought on how to combat this. 1) Buy less expensive tools and go through more of them 2) buy expensive tools and they’ll last longer."

i bought some cheap flush-cutting pliers at my local hobby store. i would have been better off using a plastic knife. they never even made one cut and are ruined. let's rule out 'less expensive tools'.

...or maybe i should re-evaluate my definition of 'less expensive'.

so, i started rough-cutting with a dremel. works like a charm. i even had a great deal of success with 'nipping' the tangs using the dremel. the problem i am having is with the final flush-cutting. my nice flush-cutting pliers are going to fail their next dental checkup. which reminds me, i need to go to the dentist. ...i digress.


anybody working with stainless steel frets? anybody recommend a method of flush-cutting that does not involve buying a new set of pliers on every build? anybody have any suggestions on how to prevent tooth decay?

the ebony fretboard (on the right) is going to get fretted next. i may try using normal (non-flush-cutting diagonal cutters. and take the rest off with a file.

or maybe a laser beam...

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yakmatter.com

I've done a good number of stainless refrets over the past few years, and it certainly is much harder on the tools. Cutting is one of the main issues, and I just keep a few sets of my old beat up flush cutters around. It certainly does leave a dent, but should last a few hundred cuts before becoming unusable.

I've always used the Channellock 356 end cutter, and ground the face flush myself. Make sure not to overheat them of course and wreck the temper. Unfortunately I discovered that in the last few years they have changed the cutter design, and now they officially suck. They used to have a steeper angle on the inside for a millimeter or so in from the cutting edge before it changed to a shallow angle - like a larger version of a microbevel. Now all their end nippers start at a very shallow angle right from the edge. Casting marks on the handles are different than how they used to be, so they must have found a cheaper forge and got new dies made or something. Can you tell that this has got me really pissed off at Channellock?

So I've looked around and found that most of the other cutters found at hardware stores seem to have the same geometry. Stupid. When the face is ground flush, they can barely cut carrots without denting. You can't pull frets cleanly with them because they will barely lift the bead .030" when fully squeezed so you have to pull directly up (not a good thing). I'll have to find a new end nipper supplier before my current set wears out.

Check whatever flush cutting pliers you're using and make sure they have a good steep microbevel on the edge. If they come right off the edge with a 25-30 degree angle, they're not going to last. It should be up around 45 or so at the very edge. Don't try to cut them with a standard double-beveled cutter. It will pucker the edges in and crimp them right in to the binding. You'd have to set back even further than with flush cutters to avoid the edge pucker, and be left with even more to file off.

Even at best, there will be more edge filing involved. A newer edge file with fresh sharp teeth can make the job much easier.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

I dont know if Allied has more, or if they are having more made, but I bought a pair of the carbide tipped cutters when they had the first run on sale at half price - they had a small issue,the cutters didnt close at the same level (at least on mine) .. easy enough to fix, as the cutters are removable with a small hex driver, so I removed the one cutter, and filed down the seat ... now IMO they are perfect. Before I did this however, one of my students used the dremel and a cutoff wheel for his SS frets, especially on the FB extension .. worked like a charm.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

thanks fellas. those are a couple of helpful tips. i think i'll try grinding the face of a pair of nippers.

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yakmatter.com

Todd, I really like the EVO wire, and have found that when it's polished and viewed on the board (as opposed to in the spool) it really doesn't have much of a gold look to it. Get it at the right angle and you can see that the hue is certainly a bit richer with a tidge of gold look to it, but not so much as to be blatant. I don't know how much more gold it will look as it weathers though.

It's a strange material, and works quite differently than nickel or stainless. It seems much more brittle than others - it has more of a snap more than snip when cutting, and feels quite different to the file as well. The hardness is certainly in between, but there are some other properties of it that just feel different - ductility, more crystalline structure, something, I don't know. It's cool though.

Tony, those cutters sound like something I'll definitely have to look in to. Thanks.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

I have a pair of the Allied Cutters as well and they work great. I believe the cutters themselves are high speed steel, not carbide, but they do a great job on stainless. They are a variation on the old Starrett end nippers, so if the Allied units are unavailable I'd look for a Starrett.

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- Louis Freilicher

Oh No! Not another learning experience!

Try HIT brand end nippers ground not quite flush leaving a small bevel for strength.
HIT is a Japanese brand . The ones to get are a compound design using multi links that increases the pressure on what you are cutting .$20 bucks or so at a good hardware store.
They work great for nipping regular fretwire too.
If you only cut regular fretwire they should last for years.Stainless , it depends on your bevel angle how long they last.I use 2 pair one for stainless only.
There is one thing though, the spring will break after several hundred necks but rubber bands will fix it .Really!
For notching the tang of stainless wire for a bound fretboard I do not clip it ,just a file is way faster and cleaner cut.
Hope this helps and good luck.

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How long is that in luthyears?