Fret Expander Pliers

This was converted from the original Frets.com site.
To view the original page click here

Making my Fret Expander Pliers

Besides being the handiest power tool for small wood parts and bone saddles, my 1x42 sander is makes a reasonably good grinder. In fact, it'll get into corners and do some stuff that's not possible on a regular grinder.

Here I'm making the fret expanding pliers I mentioned in the article on refretting. I start with ordinary small size (4.5 in. long) end nippers:

I've tried a number of different brands, and most any seem to work about as well for making this little tool.

The first step is to make the jaws narrow at the top. I just grind them on the edges until they're about 1/4" wide:

Here's how the jaws look after grinding:

The jaws have sharp edges that taper inward at the top, so I need to blunt them so there's a flush surface on the face, and about 3/32" wide surface as they meet. I'll just grind the cutting edge away:

This is how the blunted jaws look. The jaws won't meet now, because the handles touch near the pivot point:

I can grind the handles near the pivot so the jaws will close fully:

Next, I'll make the pointed jaw that actually dents the fret tang. I just grind the point on one of the jaws. I try to keep it centered and vertical, but it's not critical:

I now have a pointed jaw which bears against a flat "anvil" face:

It's hard to get the pointed jaw ground so that it meets the center of the flat jaw. But I don't worry about that because, even if the point is way off center, it's easy to mark the spot where the pointed jaw touches the flat jaw. I'll just draw some abrasive paper through the jaws with the sandy side toward the flat jaw while I press them closed lightly:

Now it's time to cut the recess in the flat jaw to match the pointy jaw opposite. That turns out to be easy because it really doesn't have to fit well at all. With my mark to guide me I can use my handy Dremel with the carbide cutoff blade to grind a v-shape notch:

Hey, that wasn't too difficult! Here's the final product:

I can just bite into the fret tang anywhere I want and make zigzag kinks. I can vary the depth of the zigs (zags?) by squeezing more or less hard on the handles. It's more accurate than it sounds:

This is the result: fretwire that can fit into slots much wider than the usual:

One very nasty job I did recently required me to use conventional frets in slots that had been cut to .042" Really! I squoze hard on my fret expander pliers, and fattened up the fret tang enough to get a reasonably good fit using wire that was made for .022" slots.