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Permalink Reply by JD on December 11, 2019 at 1:36am

It should work. It's best to have a really solid work surface for pounding in the wire.

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Permalink Reply by Jerry Jordan on December 11, 2019 at 9:35am

I recently had an Oak fingerboard that was very hard to cut the slots in ., literally hard as a rock.,.,I thought the saw had gone dull.,.,tried another Oak FB..,no trouble.,.,I usually use my Sheffield gentleman's saw from stew-mac, and the slots are looser in Poplar than in Oak.,  what else is different,? a new batch of fretwire? .,I recently tried a collar press to press the frets in, instead of a tack hammer.,.,it did give a more uniform result.,

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Permalink Reply by Jim Saraceno on December 14, 2019 at 4:23am

I don't care to use oak for either necks or fretboards. It is too hard, too brittle and the grain is too wide. That being said, I did make an oak fretboard that looks really good on that particular CBG. I found it difficult to cut the slots for the frets because oak is so dense but I don't remember having any problem setting the frets. I used the .20" kerf fretting saw from C.B Gitty.

Is it possible that either the .23" kerf you are using is too wide for the tangs to catch or that your slots are not quite deep enough? If the fret penetrates all the way but don't stay there, I would think wide slots. If the frets don't penetrate all the way, I would think shallow slots. I'd be very surprised if the wood was too dense to accept the frets but then again I suppose you could have a particularly dense piece of oak.

Let us know if you figure out the problem.

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Permalink Reply by Southpaw on December 14, 2019 at 7:12pm

maybe the tiniest amount of oil might help, I've only done this trying to put nails into hardwood

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