A press for frets

[auscab]

Got this press close to finished and will be trying it on a fret board soon.
It's converted from a pipe vice , with the stew mac caul fixture added .

[kiwigeo]

Not sure if that press is big enough to get a fret in Rob......ya need to go for something bigger. Heres my recently acquired fret press in action:

[christian]

Thats a great conversion Rob!!! I'm sure it will work very well.
I was until recently on the hunt for a similar type of vice, but just settled on using my trusty drillpress instead.
Those stewmac cauls are great too!!

Martin that press takes up about as much room as your wood stash!!

Christian.

[vandenboom]

I use a little old rusty drill press I found in hard garbage - it works well. I recall someone once raising a caution in using your 'good' drill press for this purpose because of seals being subjected to more pressure than through 'normal' drill press use.
Frank

[Tod Gilding]

Well Here's Mine, It may not be as big as Marty's but it works.

[Lillian]

Nice mod Rob. Its simple and easy to use.

[Ormsby Guitars]

You know, its great to see different ideas out there, but I honestly think this press will take so long to use, it will just be tedious. A 1/2 or full tonne press is cheap enough to buy, and ultra quick. You'd also have more 'feel'.

[auscab]

I agree Perry, that it should be a little more tedious than an arbor press , but I don't think by much , possibly five to ten seconds per fret .
And the feel will be different as well. not as much.

But it may be possible to dial in the exact amount of pressure to each fret with this. It could be possible to even use a screw press like this with a torque wrench.
And it could possibly be used in its horizontal position like in the pictures or it could possibly be used in a vertical position and if I wanted to wick in CA glue under the tang gravity will pull it down the gap.

What I want to play with is a good way of pressing and gluing at the same time, and hopefully getting the results others have spoken of here in not having to level and crown because the press did it so well.

I used hide glue last time and will be sticking with that
But also want to do some Hide mixed with charcoal experiments.
An old Italian gent came in and told me of mixing Hide glue with charcoal to fill holes in preparation to veneering. The putty mixed like this did not have the shrinkage problems associated with Hide glue.

I can see in the gaps under my frets where the Hide has shrunk back a little.

This press converted from a pipe vice is a bit sloppy though and a more refined machined version
would be better.

There is only one way to see if this is a good way of doing it though and that is just do it and see.
You may see me standing at the end of the arbor press queue if it does not work.

Actually I did go to buy one at Total Tools a few months back and they were out of stock .their supplier had gone bust .