Mandolin Refret

> The guy who did the work had two concerns:
>
> 1. He didn't want to damage the "binding" (I forget if that's the term
> he used) on either side of the fret-board (the white stuff on both
> sides of the fretboard in the photos below).

(Yes, I believe that's the right term.)

I have to confess that the last time I did a refret job, I just sawed through it and then filled in the cuts
afterward. It turned out looking OK, but not as good as it could have.

>
>
> 2. For some reason that is not clear to me, I think he was also worried
> about cracking or breaking the wood in the fretboard.

Hmmm... Interesting. I can't think why either, but I'll be cautious of that.

>
>
> What he ended up doing was filing off the tangs of the frets that he
> added and gluing them on.

With guitars, I've done that for the frets over the soundbox, but have had no problems hammering the ones over
the fingerboard. Hammering, provided that you have the right kind of hammer of course, seems to work better,
because it forces all points along the fret to go down to the shoulder and stay there. Gluing is more difficult
because it's much more critical that the fret exactly match the curvature of the neck.

But perhaps in this case it had something to do with mandolin frets been much smaller? I can't think right off
why that would matter, but perhaps there's something I'm failing to anticipate.