Those of you with a long memory may remember my noble endeavor to convert a drill stand into a fretpress. Turns out, it was a bit punky, and the wheels came off.

Actually, the lever came off. It didn’t have any wheels.

Anyhow, let me present the replacement, this time converted from an el cheapo Screw Fix welding clamp.

To convert it from the original use as a welding clamp, I drilled out the rivets holding the lower jaw, and bolted in a straight replacement, using M6 nylox nuts and a section of .25″ steel cut from a discarded hydraulic door closer arm. The top jaw was cut short, and rounded over at the end.

I fitted a pivoting glass-filled nylon fitting to the top jaw, to hold some fretting cauls from Stew Mac, and a teak neck caul (padded with leather) on the lower jaw, slotted to slide back and forwards to allow self alignment as the adjustment of the jaws changes to suit different neck sizes. The pin to prevent the neck caul falling off is an offcut of M6 studding.

Here it is in situ:

The neck shown is the first one I fretted with the new gizmo, and it went very smoothly, despite the complications of an ebony board and teeny-tiny Fender style frets. It’s a replacement neck for Tim’s Musima, more details to follow…

P.S: The flat clamp included in the screwfix welding clamp set is very handy for holding nuts, saddles and other small parts for shaping on a belt or disc sander, especially if you share my aversion for sanding away the tips of your fingers.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 18th, 2008 at 12:10 am and is filed under general. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.