StewMac Fret Work Step-By-Step

By Erick Coleman with Dan Erlewine

New tools, techniques, and color photos! The updated 2nd edition of the world's most popular fretting instruction manual.

Updated 2nd edition: more tools, new techniques!

Published by Stewart-MacDonald. The most popular fretting instruction manual in the world, a best seller since fretmaster Dan Erlewine wrote it in 1994! Our new updated 2nd edition reflects lots of innovative tools and techniques that have come along since then. We reworked it from the ground up, with colorful photos and revised text that demonstrate clearly how to tackle all kinds of fret work. Simple jobs and tricky problems are shown and explained from start to finish. Learn the right way: gain the confidence to do your own fret work on new or old guitars, maple necks, bound necks—any instrument that comes in your door.

Chapters include:

• Tools and supplies
• Working with compound radius fretboards
• Simple fret leveling and dressing
• A basic fret job
• A partial refret job
• Fretting nonadjustable necks
• Refretting a bound neck
• Fretting Fender maple necks
• Fretting Fender laminated fingerboards
• Martin bar fretting
• Fretting an unattached fingerboard
• New technology: the Plek machine
• Final setup
• 100 pages, softcover.

About the authors:

Erick Coleman: repairman, tech support guru and author. Erick answers every kind of lutherie question from Stewart-MacDonald's customers. His background includes years of traveling as a rock guitarist, which is when he started doing his own repairs. He learned from Dan Erlewine's videos, then in Dan's shop. Making a career of guitar repair, Erick is now a technical support expert for StewMac.

Dan Erlewine is a well-known guitar repair veteran and author of bestselling videos and books on repair. His DVD series on instrument repair includes a dozen volumes as of this writing.

Erick and Dan are regular contributors to our Trade Secrets E-mail Newsletter and to Stewart-MacDonald's product research and development.

The basic tools to get you started

Fret Work Step-By-Step is included in our Essential Fretting Tool