Heating frets before removal

playas

playas

Well-known member
I'm curious, I've watched a couple of vids of refret jobs where a tech heats each fret to melt any potential glue that may be in the slot holding a fret in place. So far so good, makes sense...but what I found odd is that they are running solder along the top of the fret while they are doing it.

Is there any valid reason for doing that?

It strikes me as odd.
 
I don't know much but just from a logical perspective, what the hell would the solder do? If you've ever picked up a soldering iron, it gets real damn hot real fast. Just move it across the frets a bit and that whole thing gets hot quickly. I can't imagine solder doing much of anything other than making a mess?

You can usually see the glue bubble up and smell it when you're pulling frets with an iron. It's kinda fun. Especially when you get one out super clean. Save the solder.
 
This is what I figured, but it is curious...Maybe they heard of it by word of mouth and assumed that they had to run the solder for it to work.

Thanks for clearing that up.
 
I do it with solder, I found that it simply helps with heating the fret just a bit faster and more even, and keep in the heat too. It's how I was taught, and I prefer this over no solder. Just preference I guess.
 
Solder can help to transfer heat from the tip of an iron to the fret (like grease in a pan does when you're cooking). I've done it with solder and without, it seems to be slightly faster with solder.
 
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