# Made my own Fretwrap. (Tutorial)



## thrashmetal85 (Feb 1, 2015)

Now with tutorial, see replies.

My wife had these parts laying around in her sewing gear, but these parts are easily and cheaply available from department and hardware stores.


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## ThatCanadianGuy (Feb 1, 2015)

Felt, nylon strap, and velcro?


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## thrashmetal85 (Feb 1, 2015)

Polarfleece, nylon strap, velcro, and a plastic buckle


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## setsuna7 (Feb 1, 2015)

Nice


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## ThatCanadianGuy (Feb 1, 2015)

I'm not going to lie, I'd like to see a full tutorial of this.


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## littlebadboy (Feb 1, 2015)

ThatCanadianGuy said:


> I'm not going to lie, I'd like to see a full tutorial of this.



I second the motion!


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## schwiz (Feb 1, 2015)

Nice work! I made about 200 of these guys the other weekend. Neoprene + foam for dampening.


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## thrashmetal85 (Feb 1, 2015)

Thankfully I did take some photos. I went to a barbecue and forgot to continue with photos the next day 

Adjust lengths for your instrument, this is for an 8 string guitar so 25cm of strapping is really long for a 6 stringer 


Materials


About 25cm of 3cm nylon strap
A plastic buckle that fits the nylon strap (I had to sand down this one so it was just one loop)
A roughly 25x10cm piece of polarfleece (I show a square here, but I had to adapt my design upon discovering my envisioned original packing method didn't work)
Extra scrap polarfleece for packing (foam is a bit too brittle IMO)
5cm of 3cm velcro

Tools


Good quality scissors
Cigarette lighter (to singe the strap so it doesn't fray)
Sewing machine (or a LOT of patience with a needle and thread)














Take the strapping and loop it through the buckle, sew it a close to the end of the strap and buckle at the same time.










Sew along the long edge of the polar fleece to make a tube with the fluffier side of the polar fleece on the inside, so when we invert it the seam will be hidden.













My wife started to help me here as I kept clogging the machine 
It is also the final photo I have of the build 

Take the tube and insert the buckle and strap as close to the edge as possible. Ignore the bottom tube that's my failed packing idea. Sew along the edge of the tube with the strap and nylon inside as close to the buckle as possible.









You'll have to use your imagination here sorry.



Fold the strap in half to identify the sew off point.
Sew small strips of polar fleece, on one side of, the half nearest the tube and buckle.
Feed the buckle and strap through the tube and invert.
Trim if needed and tuck in the end of the tube. Sew a and seal off the inside.
The velcro is sewn on the non-padded siade of the wrap
The rough side closest to the tube, the soft side on the end.


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## immortalx (Feb 2, 2015)

Thanks for the detailed tutorial man 


thrashmetal85 said:


> My wife started to help me here as I kept clogging the machine


I'd pay to watch a video of you using the machine


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## thrashmetal85 (Feb 2, 2015)

It would be a shot for shot remake of the opening scene from 2001 a Space Odyssey.


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## weirdoku (Feb 2, 2015)

Cut a rectangular shape piece of foam, get some double sided velcro. Place foam above strings, wrap velcro around foam and neck. As simple as that.


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## ThatCanadianGuy (Feb 2, 2015)

Every time I see a picture of an Australian guy wearing sandals, I start wondering if it's a stereotype we haven't noticed yet. XD

Thanks for the tutorial, I'll have to go make some of these. (With hot glue... My girlfriend would never let me near a sewing machine.)


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## thrashmetal85 (Feb 2, 2015)

I like to overly complicate things


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## thrashmetal85 (Feb 2, 2015)

ThatCanadianGuy said:


> Every time I see a picture of an Australian guy wearing sandals, I start wondering if it's a stereotype we haven't noticed yet. XD



Sandals!!! Those are surfer Joe's


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## ThatCanadianGuy (Feb 2, 2015)

thrashmetal85 said:


> Sandals!!! Those are surfer Joe's



I'll take your word for it. Lol. Where I live, you could surf, but if you don't freeze to death, you smell like cod and get pecked by birds.


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## thrashmetal85 (Feb 2, 2015)

If it's below 20&#730; Aussie's start complaining how freezing it is hehehe.


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## ThatCanadianGuy (Feb 2, 2015)

thrashmetal85 said:


> If it's below 20&#730; Aussie's start complaining how freezing it is hehehe.



Fecking hell. Haha. 20 degrees is a beautiful day here.


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## Michael T (Feb 2, 2015)

Completely irrelevant to the topic but we call the footwear like his Flip Flops here, any that have the piece that goes between the big toe and the one beside it, sandals don't have that they have one strap that goes across the top of the foot and that's all.

?? Is Flip Flops a regional thing (AKA redneck hillbilly **see my location) or are both styles considered sandals and Flip Flops are some crazy make believe things.

Just curious 


BTW great DIY project man, Nice job.


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## thrashmetal85 (Feb 2, 2015)

They're called thongs in Australia. For some inexplicable reason Yanks use the same word for a g-string.

Technically we're both right as "thong" means strip of leather.


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## vansinn (Feb 2, 2015)

Won't the plastic locks scratch the lacquer when pulling it back'n'forth?

I knew I shouldn't have sold my sewing machine when I stopped skydiving. And after taking up aggressive skating, I find my pants getting torn all the time..
Oh, and it can be used for winding pickups too.


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## thrashmetal85 (Feb 2, 2015)

vansinn said:


> Won't the plastic locks scratch the lacquer when pulling it back'n'forth?



Do you mean buckle?

It actually can't reach the wood on my instrument because of the padding, also it's probably nylon as well; a soft plastic.


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## vansinn (Feb 3, 2015)

Sure, the buckle. And I forgot those can be had in soft plastic too; I've only used the denser harder ones..


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## thrashmetal85 (Feb 3, 2015)

I mean soft as in I'm fairly sure that even though the buckle is stiff nylon, the laquer on the neck is harder and is unlikely to be scratched.


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## littlebadboy (Feb 8, 2015)

Eh... don't have a sewing machine...


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## BlackMastodon (Feb 8, 2015)

weirdoku said:


> Cut a rectangular shape piece of foam, get some double sided velcro. Place foam above strings, wrap velcro around foam and neck. As simple as that.


This is what I did for mine but it doesn't work too great, and isn't as pretty. I find that this one pulls more on the lowest and highest strings and almost capos them so you gotta watch out how tight you wrap it. Around the nut it works fine, though.

Great tutorial, though!


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## ixlramp (Feb 10, 2015)

For my own DIY fretwrap (made with craft felt) i use a trick for even pressure on each string: progressively add more damping material towards the centre so the fretwrap has a curved top and arches over the strings, the pull of the strap on the raised centre of the arch maintains the down-pressure on the centre strings.


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