Missing fret - OLD uke

I bought a "vintage" uke off of ebay. Its probably not as old as the stuff that came with it - it came w/a full set of ukulele lessons from 1919 that look quite authentic - aged paper etc.

But the uke is missing the 12th fret. I cleaned it up (it was apparently stored in a barn or something similar) & replaced the tuners (it had one mis-matched tuner) & have it strung w/Aquilas. [I know that replacing the tuners w/new doesn't help resale value, but it was cheap & it actually already sounds pretty good!]

Here are photos of the frets - are these common enough that I could purchase some fretwire for that missing fret? Stemac? Or?

From my experience, just recently, in a pinch I bought Stew-Macs smallest mandolin fret wire and it's a tad larger than the old fret wire used on ukuleles from 1920-30s. Filed down to the level of the remaining frets, you'll be the only one who knows the difference.

I also found out it works a lot better and is less damaging to "Press" in new frets, than to hammer them in.

Thanks for that tip! I was looking at Stewmac's selection & had almost decided on what looked to be the smallest of the lot. I'll put an order in today & maybe have a 12th fret by next week!

Just makes me wonder though why the 12th fret went awol to begin with. My first guess from looking at the photos is that, instead of being in a fretboard with the rest of the frets, it fell between two different pieces of wood which moved the way they wanted while settling over the years. If it was me I'd wanna make sure the slot is cleaned thoroughly and that the fret doesn't fit loosely, else a little CA glue carefully laid into the slot prior to seating the fret might be in order. Pressing would probably be the way to go, blunted wooden dowel in a drill press like Dave G uses, probably.. what I'd do.

I'd do exactly what Vic just said. I'd def. set that puppy in with a little CA glue on the tang.

UkeDave said:

I'd do exactly what Vic just said. I'd def. set that puppy in with a little CA glue on the tang.

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Thanks, Vic & UkeDave - that sounds like what I'll do. In the meantime, with the new strings ... this little uke sounds GREAT! Even my wife, who shakes her head each time another uke shows up, smiles when I play it - it has this great, rich, but "plinky" sound. I'll probably do a short video with it this weekend to compare it to a couple of others.