Fretting Arbor

[Taffy Evans]

Another MaGyver Moment….

I had just finished building a new overhead pin router made from two dental workstations [it’s Mark III, not a regular lutherie tool but I’ll show it if anybody is interested] and as I was taking the leftovers down to the back shed I spied the makings of another project waiting to be created.

This will be of interest to those of you who use their drill press for pushing in frets using the Stewmac fretting arbor fittings. I remember somebody asking about an arbor but I suspect that post has gone to hackers land.

The main piece I used was an old benchtop drill press from my early days that used to hold a 3/8” electric hand drill, I still see them around. This one was also used to hold a ½” Makita router in the Mark 2 pin router.

Anyway the pictures tell the story; it’s bolted to the bench using three recessed nuts in the bench and only takes seconds to set up. It does electric necks and my acoustic bolt on necks. It provides enough down force for the job at hand.

[Dominic]

Hey Taff, how much pressure can you get out of this thing without it bending? I'm just comparing to the SM fret arbor which is solid cast iron. It obviously works for you so perhaps the SM one is over built.

One thing though, you seem to have to coolest junk pile around. When I lived in SW WA there were always farmer tips around where you could find all sorts of strange and useful farm kind of stuff. Nothing like your scores though. But now in Canberra there is nothing at all. I like a good scrounge pile.
Cheers
Dom

[Nick]

Your place must resemble Steptoe's yard Taff
Neat idea, I made a fairly industrial one years ago from steel box section but still end up using the drill press. With space at a premium & me being a lazy bugger I can't be bothered dragging the arbour out from it's storage space then packing it neatly away each time so automatically find myself going back to the drill press.