LaXu Posted February 25, 2005 Report Share Posted February 25, 2005 Okay, I'm doing my first refret. Since I'm stupid, I decided to tackle using one of my favorite guitars, an old Yamaha SA-1200S semi-hollowbody made between 1979-1894 (don't know exactly what year). It has a bound ebony fretboard. After running into severe frets-popping-up problems with one fretwire, I got Dunlop 6120 and that sits better. It turned out that the original fretwire had barbs that were bigger than anything on current fretwire. I did manage to run into propably 70% of all refretting problems, from chipped wood to having to glue frets down. I've got the guitar fretted (though some of the fret ends could be sitting better against the binding) now and it plays well for the most part, but some frets have issues. The worst is the 17th fret, high E string. With the action low(ish), instead of an A5 note I get Bb5. Basically the 17th fret just buzzes and won't ring clearly. Raising the action cures this so I assume that the 17th fret is just a little low compared to the 18th? There's also some buzz when bending D and G strings at the 13th and 14th. Some minor buzzing on the 6th fret A string and 8 fret D string. What I'd like to know is how to fix all these? Did I just do a bad job leveling the fretboard and ended up with some frets that are a little too low? Should I just level it again? Is it okay to just level for example frets 6-22 since frets 1-5 are fine or am I better off leveling the whole thing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devon Headen Posted February 25, 2005 Report Share Posted February 25, 2005 It sounds to me like you need to relevel and recrown the whole fretboard. You probably either didn't hit all the frets on the first levelling job, or you took some height off a couple've frets when you were recrowning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LaXu Posted February 25, 2005 Author Report Share Posted February 25, 2005 I see, that's kind of what I thought. I marked the fret tops with a blue marker first and the sanding stone did take the marker off the tops on every fret but when I was recrowning (with sandpaper and a triangle file) I propably took too much off the problem frets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devon Headen Posted February 25, 2005 Report Share Posted February 25, 2005 I mark the frets again after levelling, and when you recrown, leave the slightest sliver of blue (or whatever color your marker is) right on the center apex of the fret. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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