Since the article “Installing Frets with Epoxy” was first posted in September 2014, California luthier David Schramm has presented an alternative that dispenses with Dremel-re-cut fret slots. After pondering his idea for some time—and hearing from David that he had tried it and found that it worked well—I’ve concluded that his alternative has merit and deserves consideration. In fact, I plan to try it myself on my next guitar. (Click here to go directly to my article update.)
The whole thought of even a reduced tang embedded in epoxy makes me nervous, but then I recalled an interview of Manuel Velazquez by William Cumpiano, where Manuel stated that he custom ordered his wire with -no- tang, and embedded them with -hide- glue. If that is not counter-intuitive, I don’t know what is. I’ve only seen a couple of examples of Manuel’s work, and I do not remember seeing any problems with frets popping out.