October 23rd, 2014

I STARTED OUT this afternoon to put frets on the two ebony fretboards.  Not a difficult process, just a little tedious.  Things started out normally

Then I carefully cleaned the ebony dust out of the grooves.  This dust is very fine and difficult to blow out but this little ruler does a nice job of it. Now I should be ready to start inserting frets

l. I mark with blue tape the two fret slots where I will drill tiny holes for brads and where I do not want to put a fret until the board is glued to the uke.
r. When you buy frets in bulk they come in these neat plastic tubes.  I selected the frets that I wanted to use 

Here you see the necessary tools.  A fretting hammer, wire-cutters, glue, and in the background, a press to firmly set the frets.

I cut and inserted the first fret into the slot after putting a little glue on it's tang. after gently tapping it into place with the hammer- i moved it to the press and firmly pressed it into the slot.  ah, nice set.  I wiped off the bit of glue exiting from the slot with a damp cloth and moved to the next fret.  I have done this hundreds of times, an easy and simple but slightly boring part of Uke building.

and then disaster !

I had tapped in the second fret and slipped the board under the press.  For some reason I exerted extreme pressure on the handle of the press and suddenly heard a sharp "Cra-a-ak". and the ebony board simply broke in two.  I must confess to a bit of profanity. This fretboard was almost ready to glue on the uke, the radius was very nice, it fit very well. Nuts, now I must cut another piece of ebony, thin it to where I want it, set up to cut the fret slots again, radius it again.  Sure glad I don't have to do this for a living, this would have been a loser afternoon.  Oh, well.  I got started on the recovery and now have a new piece of ebony with the grooves cut, ready to be tapered, decorated with dots and radiused.  What is a couple three hours wasted when you are retired- just more fun in the workshop.
but you can bet I won't be pressing as hard the next time.