Cheap & DIY Guitar Fretting Tools, Tips & Tricks

My 5th year elementary teacher once told us "knowledge is useless unless it's shared with others". Keep doing what you're doing; your videos are so inspiring.

Finally, a man after my own heart. A good tip I can pass on for a fret leveling bar is. Visit a local stonemasons yard and ask for a leveled granite cut off from a gravestone etc. I got a 22" x 2"x 1" piece of polished granite for the princely sum of £5. Just add double sided tape and an appropriate grade of sandpaper and Bob's your uncle as we say over here.

For me, making tools that do a special task is just as gratifying as building the guitar itself. Especially if those tools can be made with scraps. Thanks and keep it going.

The algorithm sent me here but your straightforward, genuine love of the craft and teaching is keeping me here. Liked and subbed. Thanks for what you do.

Wow! 18 minutes and I saved over hundred dollars. I was about to do a fret dressing and it looked like I needed a dozen special files and all kinds of abrasives. (After 18 minutes on Youtube.) So I went to the Dollar Store and bought finger nail emery boards and foam nail polishing blocks and a big rubber eraser. -Thanks!

Dear friend, I am writing to you from Argentina, an underdeveloped country where there are really very few things to make instruments, and the few that arrive are priced in dollars, but our currency is very devalued and it is impossible to buy anything, your video was inspiring, thank you very much Tim!!! I follow your channel Greetings Joseph

Way back in 1976 I was building my first real dulcimer (the prototype had 12 gauge steel wire glued on top of sawcuts for frets). I managed to buy fret wire somehow but I had no specialized tools. To saw the slots, I ran an oil stone down each side of a hacksaw blade until it cut the right kerf. It worked, and I'm still playing that instrument. 😅

I started building my own solid body electric in 1984. I would go to two different wood shops who sold maple and alder or ash mahogany. I used old hand planes to make two piece bodies to get two edges flat and didn't have pipe clamps so I used 4 2x4's with one edge flat a 1/4" bolt to hold them then 3 press in flange nuts and 3/8" bolts to clamp the 2 sections. I used hand planes for all truing the finger board neck . An old router to cut the truss rod slot and binding . Spoke shaves and files to shape the neck and a set of chiz to fit the neck pocket . Used feeler gauges with filed teeth to slot the nut. I even built 4 strats still have 3 with the same tools except I bought C lamps and pipe clamps and still used the same 1/4" D handle porter cable router to do all the neck pockets and truss rod slot but I made templates for the body routing neck pocket and pu's and so on. Round over bits for the body. Better truss rods mine were home made single action when I started. A small bench top drill press for tuner holes and to sand the body to the line I marked from the template using a sanding drum from sears . I even used a hand saw to cut finger boards , placed one side flat then drew a line sawed then planed the other side. Exacto saw for a fret saw files to fit the tang after I measured it's width. Just filed the saws blade to match the tang. Only the last 2 I built I bought a fret saw from Stew Mac and a 12" radius block and fret hammer. Never did buy nut files. Always wanted to build an acoustic yet bought those and do my own set ups and level and dress frets . I used a 8" mill file to level , this time I made a 1"x2"x11" oak block cut with my table saw and trued the 1" edges sand paper on the saws cast iron top and plan to use my nickleson slim taper triangle files with safe edges to re-crown the frets . Wanted to get one on amazon for $60 plus but I can get by. Using the masking tape super glue to fix the sand paper to my new oak leveling beam. Finally bought a 3 degree reamer to ream pin holes in a few acoustic that are recording King parlor size because they use cheap pins that are close to 3 degree the reamer is from a seller on Ebay who makes 3 and 5 and are $57 and just as good as Stew Mac perfect. All sorts of small files and assorted mirrors and pin vices which I use for all tuning key screw holes and added strap buttons. Now that I am 74 I just have 5 acoustics to maintain and since the 3 strats I built were made here from wood here they never changed with humidity. I sold at least 15 electrics I built by hand and all the buyers were impressed how well they play no fret buzz at all. Even compared to $4000 electrics they have.

I love the way you present this information! Thanks for staying humble, helpful, open to learning, and being someone to look up to! These are all fantastic tips.

You can get blocks of wood cut to radius for guitar necks for cheap. They work as a fret level for those same radius frets. This trick saves a lot of time, a little sharpy on the frets, and run down the frets once or twice rapped in 600grit. You can see every fret that isn't level. Keeps your frets to a perfect radius also. I used a fret level for my first few guitars before i tried it this way. Saved me a lot of time, and the guitars came out playing better

To add a few more tips: Those little 6-inch stainless steel rulers that we all have are perfect for cleaning out fret slots, and you need those rulers anyway, so. . . . Razor blades of course make useful scrappers, but so, I've found, do microscope slides (cheap and disposable). A regular ol' claw hammer works just fine for hammering frets. Grind the face of your hardware store end-nippers flush on a grinder. They'll work a lot better that way. I think polishing frets is overly prissy, I don't do it. But I do use #0000 (4-ought) steel wool. It's indispensable, in particular, for smoothing fret ends.

I use an old level too and double-stick-tape emery cloth to it for fret leveling, since it comes in narrow long strips. I love the nail-block tip and the setup jig from cheap rulers!

Great vid. I just bought a small set of harbor freight nippers ($4.00) to mod into a fret puller. I filed the face flat and used an old chainsaw file on the interior of the closed nippers to create a nice interior sharp edge. Worked like a charm on my 76' FG165s. New frets going on soon...after I clean up the fret board.

For polishing frets just always used green scotch brite & 0000 steel wool.

I learned a philosophy Tim embodies. "All teach, all learn." Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us DIYers. I'm a bit too new to have anything to share. I'm still in the all learn phase.

side note: I almost learned the hard way, but when you print a pdf template for your fret board, make sure to do a large scale print at like a Staples or Office Depot, or anywhere that is capable. I printed mine off the computer and realized the fret lines were off enough that by the end of the board it was almost a 1/4" off. Large format printing was perfect.

Great video Tim! Another tip is to hook up with a local Luthier in your area. When I made my first Acoustic I didn't want to fool with the final fretting routine and set up of the guitar. So, for a nominal fee, I let him do all of that. Well worth the expense in my opinion. He was also very willing to share his knowledge and had many items that he no longer used or needed. I offered to purchase a few of the items but he wound up giving them to me just because I brought my guitar for him to work on. We became good friends after that. 👍👍🎸🎸😉😉

Great video!! You're so genuine as you talk about things and some great ideas too. The nail buffer, game changer. Cheers!

Side note.... I bought a pair of Irwin end Nippers, then I just ground down the front to where it was flush enough to cut frets.. But a radius sanding block can be made very easily by running a scrap 2x4 SIDEWAYS through a 12" table saw. Works great

I was always so worried about redressing the frets on my classical guitar, but now with some knowledge on the subject, I can do the job myself. Thank you.