I find fret shims sometimes useful on my archlute and theorbo, where I don't always get a new fret tight enough before that very short slide up to position. Instead of throwing that new fret out I will shim with wood or rolled thick paper. If older frets become loose but are still serviceable, I may also shim.
But new frets make the instruments sound their best. -- R On Feb 9, 2014, at 5:35 PM, Dan Winheld wrote: > "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
