The Ukulele Guild of Hawaii January 2002

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Nate's Shop

Fretwork

Alas, while brudda Nate is on holiday in New York visiting his daughter I will attempt to fill in as his tag team partner and finish up his series on fretwork. So heres Johnny.... Weve finished up dressing the frets and have a newly leveled nicely crowned series of frets...so before you pull off your masking tape...lets finish up our fretwork with a final polishing that will give you a slick finish. I use a Dremel tool with a modified ceramic-polishing wheel. These wheels are available at Steward MacDonalds item number 5266 or 5268. Ceramic wheels about 3/16th thick and about 1 in diameter. Chuck these puppies into your Dremel tool and with a small tapered round mill file...turn on the Dremel and carefully file a small groove with the tapered file into the edge of the ceramic polishing wheel. When thats pau...polish each fretwire, fret by fret holding the wheel perpendicular to the fret wire and moving left to right. The key here is to gently polish the fret wire crowns to a mirror like finish...it wont take long...so dont get carried away and put unwanted scatches in your fingerboard. After polishing take off the masking tape protection and with a single edged razor blade...final scrape the fingerboard...add a few drops of fingerboard oil...and you are done. Your fingerboard should be oiled... fretwire polished to mirrorlike consistency and you are now ready to string up and adjust both Action and Intonation.... Stay TUNED!