Fret Crowning And Polishing - Any New Methods ?

[Jaden]

Guys, any recommendations for fret crown and polish to speed the process up ?

sometimes I have to level and crown quite a few necks in a day and its a real bind, I was thinking along the lines of making some shaped cauls and ftting them to an electric toothbrush (or something that vibrates, you get the idea) each caul with a different grit.

does anyone out there use a similarly "mechanised" process ?

I looked at the polishing stick things from stewmac but they just look gimmicky..

[Metalhead28]

Are you talking about those sanding sticks? If you grind a groove in them so that they fit over the fret, they're nice.

How do you do it now? I sand 320 & 400 with a sanding stick or by hand, then 600 by hand, and then I use a buffing wheel with coarse compound followed by another with fine compound.

[erikbojerik]

Levelling is fast - long flat block along the string paths, or a radiused block if you prefer.

Crowning is what takes the time - not so much of an issue if you don't mind flat fret tops (see LP Custom...). IMO this really needs to be a hand job, if you go too far with a power tool (like a Dremel) you run the risk of messing up the results of your levelling.

Polishing can also be fairly quick - 500-1000-2000-4000 Abralon pads (dry) on a random orbital sander for me. If I really want them to glow, I'll buff them individually with a Dremel buffing wheel (takes maybe an additional 15 minutes).

[Woodenspoke]

As erik says you cant crown frets by machine, at least within a reasonable cost. Stumac does sell a rubberized ceramic polishing wheel to polish the fret, mounts on a dremel. Does a good job except I find them hard to control. Probably takes just as long (trying to keep it steady and on the crown) than doing it by hand the old fashion way. Maybe has mastered this wheel and it does speed up the process?

[Southpa]

Depends on what you are crowning with. If you are using the regular steel crowning files then yes, you could speed things up a bit. Splurging on the diamond grit file (what, 80 bucks now at stewmac?) will help. I was told that only a few swipes is required to crown a fret with one of those.

[Woodenspoke]

Depends on what you are crowning with. If you are using the regular steel crowning files then yes, you could speed things up a bit. Splurging on the diamond grit file (what, 80 bucks now at stewmac?) will help. I was told that only a few swipes is required to crown a fret with one of those.

I have both diamond and steel and see no difference in the speed of the cut. I would assume using both files on stainless frets would be a different story.

[Jaden]

the way i do now without going into details is:

re-crown after levelling with a beam as someone said, I use a waverly type steel burr crowning file.

then I start getting the file marks out with 320 wet & dry paper

I move through the grits to 1200 wet & dry - I stop doing the sides of the frets at 800 grit.

then I use steel wool to finish.

this process takes quite some time and if I have been making plenty of necks it can easily take me a whole day.

I understand that mechanising the process would be expensive - I might as well buy a PLEK machine

all im looking for is a faster way to go through the grits really, I was thinking along the lines of using a very small detail sander that I could affix a shaped sander to (in the shape of the fret crown) and these shaped sanding pieces could be interchangeable all with different grits..

I was wondering if anyone had already made something like this ?

[Metalhead28]

Do you buff the frets after sanding? I like a mirror finish and I don't bother sanding past 600, hell I don't hit them too hard with that. A buffing wheel on my drill takes care of the rest.

[Woodenspoke]

I move through the grits to 1200 wet & dry - I stop doing the sides of the frets at 800 grit.

then I use steel wool to finish.

I generally stop at 600 and finish off with steel wool. I also run a micro grit polishing paper over the frets and board when I am done. I will gather to suggest you are spending way too much time trying to finish off the frets. The whole process should be a short one. Its the leveling and crowning which takes time.

I was wondering if anyone had already made something like this?

Sound again like over kill and with power sanding you run the risk of ruining the fret leveling you just did.

Do you buff the frets after sanding? I like a mirror finish and I don't bother sanding past 600, hell I don't hit them too hard with that. A buffing wheel on my drill takes care of the rest.

I can agree with the 600 grit, but unless the board is finished such as a maple fingerboard I would be worried about polishing compound getting into every crack and crevice and in some case's into the wood pore's as well.

[Jaden]

is it noraml to stop at around 600 ?

its seems to be the trend im seeing.

I have some microfilm finishing papers here, im going to bond them to several fret shaped cauls and check the results.

600 seems like a very low grit to stop polishing to me..

as far as compound goes, I did once try autosol but as spoke has said, it makes a horrible mess and even on rosewood it took a fair bit of cleaning up even though I was being very careful.

and yes, power sanding is so fraught with the danger of ruining the level its not worth it.

[Metalhead28]

I wouldn't stop at 600 grit if I wasn't buffing them also.

I haven't had an issue with the polishing compound. Of course my whole fretboard is masked thoroughly and I wrap up the body too.

[Southpa]

Heres my method.

http://www3.telus.net/Alsplace/Fretwork/

The pics show my most basic steps. You can't leave any of those steps out, that is cutting corners and the end result suffers. Pace yourself, and make sure you economize your actions. Doing fretwork, the way I do it , is hard on the fingers, hands and wrists. Try not to cripple yourself.

[Guitars by Jake]

I usualy do kind of a pre setup before I do the frets, then I level them, crown them, and then use sand paper starting going from 220-320-400-600-800-1000 after which I use steel wool, and then some metal polish. Takes a bit of time, but they shine when done. I have tried different ways to speed up the process, (not on clients guitars) and I was never really happy with the outcome.

[Jaden]

right, I have made up some shaped cauls and bonded micofilm finishing paper to them, ill try a few frets with this method and let you chaps know how I get on.

[Woodenspoke]

I think a bit of steel wool equivelent is in order here. #0000 is equivelent to 600 grit paper. Using stell wool after anything but 600 grit is a waste of time.

[dugg]

Grizzly has a new product here;

http://www.grizzly.com/products/Fret-Leveling-Kit/T20825

It looks like a radiused caul like you want, no?

[fookgub]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Frank Ford's technique of sanding along the fretboard with finger-backed 600 grit paper to crown the frets (link). I know it sounds incredibly lazy and cheesy, but it works quite well provided your leveling wasn't too aggressive. Polishing the frets with micromesh goes quickly, too, though I imagine a buffer would be faster (don't know for sure since I don't have one).

Anyway, I've tried this on a few necks now, all fretted with narrow-ish wire that didn't need much leveling, and I was more than pleased with both the results and the amount of effort required. I imagine there are a few situations where this technique would be a bad idea, but it's always nice to have more than one way to do something.

[Jaden]

ok..

came up with a great new method, not dissimilar to the stick from stewmac..

got 2 pieces of wood jointed together with a spring between them, cut some "belts" from sheets of mikra paper - looped and glued at the ends.

the sticks are like this:

the groove is a hack saw cut followed by using a piece of wood with a piece of fretwire in it and cut off sharp to make a kind of scratch awl (if anyone knows what they are) I use the piece of fretwire to plough a groove to the exact profile of the fret...

then change belts as i work through the grits.