It Worked for Me: Sawdust in Fretboard Slots

by John Calkin

Originally published in American Lutherie #144, 2021

When I worked in the dusty machine room at Huss & Dalton, it would occasionally happen that the technician doing the fretting would show up, remove the trapdoor of the table-saw base, and dip a coffee can full of the sawdust. If the saw base had recently been cleaned, the tech became very disgruntled as he stalked away. It was very mysterious.

H&D had always used superglue to secure the frets. The slots were widened with a Dremel tool to make the frets a press fit. Once the fretboard was nicely leveled and sanded, the sawdust was rubbed across the slots until they were firmly packed. A heavy coat of bowling-alley wax was then applied to the fretboard right over the filled slots. The sawdust filler was then blown out of the slots with compressed air, leaving the slots wax free. The frets were glued in a few at a time using clamps and special cauls, and any squeeze-out readily popped free of the waxed wood using a small chisel. When a refret was called for, the old frets were lifted out after a large soldering iron was used to liquefy the superglue, which either evaporated or soaked into the sides of the slots. There was never a trace of chipout. Any playing wear was sanded out of the wood and the fretting process repeated.

Mystery solved. ◆