guykerGuitar Fretwire Bender - Fret Wire Bending and Straightening Luthier Tool for Guitar & Bass Radian Adjusters, Repair & Maintenance, Chrome

Very accurate, bends the wire as it should. It's very easy to use, light weight and overall a great value for the price.

I am in agreement with another reviewer concerning the tool and pricing with a certain Luthier and general stringed instrument supplier. I too have purchased quite a lot from them, and like their wares and service a lot, and will continue to do so. I ran across this knock-off fret radius tool, and bought it based on my very intermittent needs for such a tool, and could not justify paying a lot more for it. I find this tool functional, does the job. I did not expect graduations or markings to show actual bend radius on the tool, but a little trial and error, sneaking up on the fret radius desired works OK. One could use straightened copper wire, bend it, and compare to a drawn radius on a template as well. One of the guide bearings rotation is a little on the rough side, the surface finish of the “main body” of the tool is rough. But, for less than half the cost, it does the job I need it to do very well. I couldn’t give it a five star due to one sort of chunky feeling bearing and rough body surface, but functionally it does the trick. I like the “flip down” handle, saves a bit of room in the overcrowded tool box. It arrived well packaged, quickly! Overall a good value.

I have already used it three times and it’s super easy. You can take a test piece and bend it until it’s accurate and lock it. Then it’s really easy to pass the wire through and gently crank it. Feels very solid and works amazing. I can us it in my hand.

Nice precision smooth operating fret bender. (Massive improvement over my homemade one, and it has a crank!) A great value for the money.

The groove that the fret tang rides in was not deep enough. I used a standard hack saw blade with some oil to lubricate and turned the handle to cut the groove to the appropriate depth. A friend purchased this as well and had a the same problem. If not corrected the fret wire will twist and make it unuseable. Other than that it's a great tool.

3 issues: 1) the slot is not deep enough for fret wire I have. Fixed by placing in a drill and running a hacksaw blade in the slot. 2) lower forming wheels too close to the base (not aligned with slotted wheel). Fixed by adding washers. 3) excessive play in the vertical adjustment slot causing the slotted wheel to wobble when the handle was operated. Fixed by adding masking tape to the brass slide as ashim to take up the gaps. Overall, I spent a fraction of what S.M. was going to charge, but I should not have needed to fix this at all.

Works once you get it tuned up and learn how to use it. I had to replace the plastic washers behind the two small rollers. One was too thin and the bearing was binding against the body of the machine. Both rollers needed to be a bit further out from the body in order to center them under the groove in the big roller.Update: The device works much better with larger bottom rollers. They make it easier to feed the wire in. I used two bearings from an inline skate wheel, which fit perfectly. See photo. An original bearing is sitting below the new ones

Well made and seems to work flawlessly, I couldn’t justify the more expensive one as I’m only doing a few guitars, but I’ve been more than happy. It’s easy to dial in precisely and folds up for storage. There’s not much to dislike here.