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Bending fretwire

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2018 7:44 pm
by Morgan
I need to bend some fret wire, is there a pitfall to simply cutting an arc of MDF, routing a slot in the edge for the tang and bending around that?

Re: Bending fretwire

Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2018 7:24 am
by tippie53
I made my own with a hole saw made 3 rollers with the top one in the middle and a thin slot for the tang
I don't have a pic but it looks something like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV804LQDll0

Re: Bending fretwire

Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2018 9:12 am
by ruby@magpage.com
I did what you are proposing to touch-up wire and increase the bend a little where needed. Mine is yellow pine with a saw kerf that followed a pencil line. I poked around and found a backsaw in the stash that was a slip-fit for the wire. Works fine for my purposes, but all the wire I have bought came pre-bent so i have never had to do the whole job with it

Ed

Re: Bending fretwire

Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2018 12:03 pm
by phavriluk
I made a fret bending jig from a drawing I fished from somewhere online. Had a parts list of all the bearings and rollers and handles and fasteners, and every bit came from my local True Value guitar tool store. Except for the UHMW cutting board I used for the body, that came from Target. Works just fine and didn't take but a couple of hours to build.

Re: Bending fretwire

Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2018 7:28 am
by MaineGeezer
You may want something harder than MDF so the tang is a good stable non-wiggle fit in the groove, but I think it ought to work.