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My First Fret Level And Dress (lots Of Pics)


Mind Riot

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Hi everybody. Once again, I want to express my appreciation for any information I've attained here, as it all helped to make this job successful. I've been gathering my tools and supplies slowly over the last few months to get into doing my own fret work, and with the arrival of my crowning file from Stew Mac yesterday I could finally try applying everything I've learned.

Now, I understand that there are numerous methods for doing this, and I'm not for one second touting mine as the best or only way. This is just how I decided to go about things after learning about various methods, and the way I did it is relatively idiot proof and involves some tools that are perhaps more expensive than some folks would prefer.

The guitar I decided to try this out on is an inexpensive guitar I've had for about a year, a Squier '51. I really like these little guitars, and in fact I now own two of them since Musician's Friend is blowing them out and I couldn't stop myself from ordering another one last week. :D The one I've had for a year I modified by routing the body and cutting the pickguard to install a matched pair of humbucker sized P-90's. I also replaced the bridge with a top loader from GFS. In addition to the fret leveling I did today, I also installed a preslotted Graphtech nut from Stew Mac on this one.

So, without further ado, here's how I went about things.

I start out by removing the old nut and strings the night before, and I also adjust the neck straight at that time as well. I then take it out to my father's shop this morning, where I went about taping off the fretboard, clamping the guitar in position, and supporting the neck. I use a 1/8" sheet of 60 duro neoprene rubber to hold the guitar in place as well as protect it from the work table and clamps. I support the neck with a stack of copy paper, which works very well as it's easy to build it up to just the right height; you just slide more paper under there until it's just right.

51prepped.jpg

Of course the travel, time and temperature changes can mess with a neck, so I recheck the neck straightness with my straightedge, using both a backlight and a .0015" feeler guage. Over the course of adjusting things the night before I came to realize that the 7th fret was high to the point of messing with checking the straightness on the whole neck, so I checked the straightness on both sides of the 7th fret; 1-6 and then 8-21. There was JUST enough distance to where I could fit the straightedge in between the D and G string saddles on the bridge to do this. I couldn't get the feeler guage under any GROUP of frets checking this way; of course I could get it under a few of them or else they'd already all be level.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpics/Straightedge.jpg

I then color the frets with a Sharpie marker.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpics/Fretscolored.jpg

I very carefully place double stick tape on one of the radius blocks I got from guitarguy (thanks again) so that there is no gap between the tape to mess up the surface. I then cut a piece of 320 grit sandpaper with about 1/8" extra on all sides to attach to it.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpics/Tapedblock.jpg

Once it's attached, I bend the edges upward so the sandpaper doesn't catch on the frets.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpics/Radiusblock.jpg

I level, using light, even pressure at first, being careful to keep the block straight with the center of the neck. I say at first because this particular guitar needed more aggressive leveling than I thought it would, so I used a bit more pressure once I realized there would need to be more metal removed to do the job.

When doing this, it's very clear the kind of advantage the marker trick gives you in watching what's being removed. I took this pic midway through leveling, so you can see where there's still some marker left on the tops of some of the frets.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpics/51leveling1.jpg

After some time (more than I expected, I have to be honest, it took more than I thought it would), there is a fresh contact point on all frets. Although it's not pictured, I then put four layers of tape on the 12th fret and did a few more strokes on frets 13-21 to add a bit of fallaway.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpics/Levelingdone.jpg

I recolored the fret tops with the Sharpie, and then it was time to bust out my brand new recrowning file I got from Stew Mac. I decided to get the diamond file just in case I keep persuing guitar repair and end up refretting one of my guitars with SS fret wire. I'm fascinated by the concept of SS wire, and I didn't want to use a regular toothed file only to have to pay again for a diamond file later.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpic...rowningfile.jpg

Recrowning is some delicate stuff, and I don't mind admitting that I overdid it the first couple frets, removing all the marker from some spots, and had to run the radius block over the board again a couple times and start over. But the second time I was more careful, and was able to get a pretty neat, clean contact point on the tops of the frets. I'm sure I'll get better at this the more I do it. (I hope.)

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpics/Recrowning2.jpg

After the recrowning was done, I used the 'hand swipe' method up and down the neck with 400 and 600 grit sandpaper wrapped around my hand to remove filing marks. I now think that this was unnecessary, for two reasons: One, the 300 grit diamond file doesn't leave much in the way of marks on the frets, and two, I use Micro Mesh for polishing the frets and it removes marks just as well from the sides of frets. As for the tops of the frets, I'll explain more on that later.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpics/Handswipe.jpg

I used the Micro Mesh pads from Stew Mac to polish the frets and remove some marks, going up through the grits all the way to 12000. Micro Mesh is some cool stuff, and leaves a polish that is really something to see.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpics/Micromesh.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpic...etspolished.jpg

Now, here's my only real mistake that I can find here, and it is a bit of a big one, in my opinion. I went about polishing the frets, and they looked very nice, but it wasn't until I knelt down and looked very closely and from different angles that I noticed that there were still marks from the 320 grit paper on the contact points on the frets that the Micro Mesh did not remove. So the frets were highly polished, but the contact point was a highly polished rough spot, if you can dig that. I could feel the roughness when I ran my fingernail over it perpendicular to the neck, just barely.

The hand swipe hit the sides of the frets only, because I didn't want to mess up my contact point. I could have hit the fret tops with 400 and 600 and then 800, but I was afraid that would mess up the levelness of the contact points.

I thought about it for a bit, and decided to leave it and see what happened. (I can tell you that aside from being able to see it if you look really close, it turned out fine. You can't feel it when you play.)

What I learned from this was that on my next fret job I'm going to do my primary leveling with 320 grit paper, but after the flats are all exposed I'm going to attach progressively finer grits to the radius block, up to 800, and use the radius block to remove the marks. That way, the levelness of the contact points will be preserved, and I'll only have to worry about removing marks from the sides of the frets which isn't a problem at all. So, no biggie, but I was frustrated with myself for a bit there.

There are a few things that are not pictured, because of redundancy and the fact that I was alone and only have two hands. For one thing, I checked and rechecked the straightness of the neck every five minutes or so out of paranoia that something would go wrong while I prepped everything. Another thing is that in the middle of leveling I checked the straightness and found, to my dismay, that the neck had developed a hump in the middle. Thankfully I caught it before it really screwed things up, made a minor truss rod adjustment, and was back in business. And finally, instead of bringing all five of my radius blocks like I should have I just grabbed the one that I had left out of the box I keep them in, thinking that I had been using it for something on my '51. In fact, I had been using it on my scrap neck, and so I grabbed the wrong block, the 10 inch radius instead of the 9.5. So, I had to drop everything after prep and drive ten miles round trip back home to get the right block. :D

After all this crazyness was done, I went about installing the Graphtech nut. This was a preslotted, preshaped jobby as I don't yet have nut files at my disposal, the best I got is a few needle files in a few different shapes. I had already cleaned the slot the night before to remove glue residue, so it was all ready. I could tell just by looking at it that the new nut was way too tall, but I was afraid to go about messing with it before I knew how the frets had turned out. So I installed it with just a bit of CA and let her dry for a few minutes.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpics/Newnut.jpg

Here you can actually see what the whole guitar looks like. B)

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpics/51done.jpg

After all this, I packed everything up and went home to a cleaner environment where I could put on a fresh set of strings and do some setup work. I didn't take any pics of the setup stuff, but here's a synopsis.

I first installed the strings and, curious as to how it turned out, played it a bit. I was less than impressed, there was buzzing all over the place and I was certain I had screwed something up along the way. But then I remembered reading in Dan Erlewine's book (the Guitar Player Repair Guide) that sometimes it can take a little while to settle in after all that work and to be patient. So I passed some time by lowering the string slots in the nut. They were WAY too high, as I expected, so I brought out my feeler guages, measured the first fret with my digital caliper, added 15 thousandths to that height, stacked the feeler guages under the strings, tuned down the strings enough to move them out of the way one at a time, and started filing the slots down. I'm sure you all know this method, just file down until your file hits the feeler guage, thus ensuring you don't go too low. This worked splendidly, even though I don't have actual nut files. My high E, B, and G string slots are too wide because I simply don't have a file that narrow, but they still work just fine. The slots are buried into the nut quite a bit now though, I'll take some off the top of the nut at a later time so it doesn't look like the strings are slicing black cheese.

I then started setting things up a bit more, which took some time. I was curious about some of the stories I'd heard about the super low action some people get just after a fret leveling, so I lowered the action to about a 32nd of an inch all over and tried it out. Didn't work, buzzing and note choking, but hey, I had to see. :D I messed with it some more, compromising a bit on the action here, adjusting the truss rod just a hair, playing it a bit, making mental notes. It seemed to get better the more I played it, and after a little while I got it dialed in pretty good. I'm sure I'll still mess with it a bit as I have a pretty aggressive pick attack and that will require higher action no matter how good the fretwork is. But as it stands now, I have the action set at just a hair over 1/16" at the twelfth fret on the low E, and it's lower on the high E. The relief, at the moment, is about .004", measured with a feeler guage at the seventh fret with the first and seventeenth frets fretted. No real buzzing to speak of unless I hit it hard, so I know I'll have to raise things a bit more.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpics/Action.jpg

All in all, I'm pleased as punch. This thing is now arguably the best player of all my guitars, and I'm still dialing it in. Most folks I know would be ecstatic over having 1/16" action with no buzzing, and not only am I not that demanding but I have no problem with setting it a little higher to deal with my playing style. I've never had a guitar professionally leveled and dressed, and now I know what all the fuss is about. It's such a nice feeling to have the guitar HELP you play better instead of fighting you. This guitar was already a decent player stock, but nothing like this. It's just effortless.

The simple fact is that I can't afford expensive guitars. And even if I could, I'd probably still do this myself just because I like doing things like this on my own. But being able to do this opens all kinds of doors. We all know that one of the biggest differences between expensive guitars and cheap ones is the fret work. Now I can get a cheap guitar online without fear that there will be horrible buzzing and the thing will be unplayable, because even if it is like that I can fix it. And not only fix it and make it playable, make it play really, REALLY nicely. Not to mention being able to keep my guitars in tip top shape, and maybe even helping out some of my friends. I'm stoked, as this is a very useful new skill that will save me money and make playing music even more enjoyable.

Next up: My OTHER Squier '51!

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpics/Dual51s.jpg

Edited by Mind Riot
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I´ve seen many books and pictures about fret leveling with and without a radiused block.

In my mind i always thought it was pretty obvious to work with the radiused one , but faced to that , i was reading the benedetto´s book a couple of days ago , he was using a normal file to do his leveling.

I must say that im not sure about whats the best thing to use.

Anyone ? :D

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A narrow straight leveler is better for leveling in the path of the strings ("Compound radius"). A radius block levels only in the path of the 2 middle strings (on a typical tapered neck).

"Compound"/conical radius makes a better playing neck, in my opinion. From a repairman standpoint, I would prefer a radius block, but the player point of view rules out the repairman point of view (for *this* situation).

I'll still use radius blocks when changing a cylinder radius to "compound", but only go so far with the radius blocks, then switch over to 'The Great Equalizer' (19" long, 1" wide, dead flat leveler)

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Sir, this is great info.....I too have a fender Squire......so, I'm gonna give it a shot to see how much better I can make this thing thanks again. :D

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Thanks for reading about it everybody. Now, I have a serious question.

I've posted this project with pics and a bit more detailed explanation on another forum. I've had a couple of guys tell me that I did the leveling wrong and that you should never use a radius block with sandpaper to level an entire neck. They are saying that I should have spot leveled only the problem frets, checking each group of three frets with a short straightedge, and that that would have leveled the frets. They're also saying that my frets probably aren't level after doing it the way I did.

I checked the levelness of the frets after I did all this, both with my 18" straightedge and with a short one on groups of three frets at a time. Everything checked out level.

I can understand spot leveling individual frets that are high, but on frets that are lower than the rest I don't see any way of effectively leveling the board without doing the whole thing like I did, short of lifting the low frets and glueing them in place, then leveling them. In one of the pics I took where I was midway through the leveling process, you can see that there is still marker left on some of the frets, which to me indicates that they are lower than the majority and more leveling is needed.

Am I missing something here? Did I do something wrong? Is there any reason to think that the method I used would not result in level frets?

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The best method, would be to get the frets perfectly level, while taking off as little as needed on any and all frets. Which method does that the best ? Could be any method; depends how carefully the method is done. I would have to say that if any high frets can be pin-pointed before any leveling, then it would be good to knock them down a little, just so they don't cause a "ramping" for your longer leveler.

You will find on many boards (maybe even ALL boards, to some extent) that there are a few "rulers" and many "followers". Often a "ruler" will give their opinion, and the others will just follow. Any opposing opinion often stays silent. And you will find that a particular opinion is accepted on one forum, but a much different opinion rules on another forum.

That's probably the main thing that often turns me into a "loose cannon" on forums, because I don't put those "ruler" types above anyone else, and that really sets off those guys (the big spoiled babies that they are)

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It appears that they were trying to tell me about how some guitars, even though they are single radius boards, will not have frets that perfectly follow the radius of the board consistently. So they thought I should spot level and not use a radius block for the whole board. One fellow who worded his post the most strongly said he had ruined not one, but two sets of frets trying to level the whole thing with a radius block. He said it was not a compound radius board.

I did notice, and you can see in my pics, that some of the higher frets took more leveling to remove the marker than the lower, which is what they seem to be talking about. I still have plenty of fret left on the whole board (at least .038" at the lowest spot I could fine, with an average height of .041"), but apparently the fellow who had the bad experience ended up sanding his lower frets down to nothing on the edges while still not touching the middle of the higher frets.

While I still think what I did worked just fine, and the guitar plays great with lower action than I was ever able to achieve before and I still have lots of fret material left, I am soaking in what they said. After all, one of the goals of fret leveling is to get the frets all level while removing the minimum amount of material necessary.

I told them that I would check for high frets and mark the frets on my next neck. Then I would lightly hit the frets with the radius block and if the neck exhibited the same symptoms as the last one (flatter frets in the higher register) then I would go with the flow and level it to a slight compound radius with a flat leveler of some kind. That way I would most likely end up removing less material than if I sanded with the radius block until everything was level.

So now I have to get some kind of flat leveler to use. I was thinking of taking my straightedge to a few hardware stores and looking at some carpenter's triangles, the ones with the wide flat edge on one side, and checking them for flatness with my straightedge until I found the flattest one. Then I could attach sandpaper to it via the same method I use on the radius block. Thoughts or recommendations?

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So now I have to get some kind of flat leveler to use. I was thinking of taking my straightedge to a few hardware stores and looking at some carpenter's triangles, the ones with the wide flat edge on one side, and checking them for flatness with my straightedge until I found the flattest one. Then I could attach sandpaper to it via the same method I use on the radius block. Thoughts or recommendations?

Yeah, you might find one dead flat, but most likely it will show quite a gap against a *good* straight edge, if it's some 'run of the mil carpenter's levels.

I had two of the StewMac 16" ground bars, and they were just not flat enough. Sent them back !!!

Best thing I ever did, was to learn how to cut 1/4" thick glass, and made my own dead flat levelers from glass on steel tubes, but I was lucky that the 1/4" glass I happened to have, was real flat, and I also had to be careful how I glued it to a hollow steel beam while keeping the glass flat (first one I made, ended up making the glass bowed).

If customers would give me a break, I'd like to get around to taking my glass/steel leveler to the next level, and that's to put glass on all 4 sides of the metal tube, instead of just on the one side, as it is now. (it's a 1" x 1" square metal tube- from someone's metal gate door they threw away)

Because that expensive gold sandpaper is still good after leveling a fret-board, and it's pretty stupid, that I have to peel it off, to change to another grit. With a 4 sided leveler, I can at least leave 4 grits on there, until they're really worn out enough to peel off. Then I'll make another 4 sided leveler for a few more grits.

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Exellent tutorial. Even though some didn't agree with your way of doing the job, you thought it through, took your time and it worked out fine.

I drilled the holes for the machine heads on my guitar using a router with the correct size router bit and they came out perfectly square and clean (which you would expect) someone didn't like it and said I should have drilled them.

But as with your way of doing a fret job they came out very well and I bet you'll do it the same way on your next one.

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Well, I went scrounging around in some scrap steel and came across a length of 1" by 1 1/2" steel tubing. One of the 1" wide sides was perfectly flat for most of the length of the tube. I was able to cut a nice 10 1/2" long piece for myself to use as a flat leveler. I quadruple checked after cutting and cleaning up the ends to make sure I hadn't warped it. It's perfectly flat, I checked it with my Stew Mac straightedge with a back light and with a .0015" feeler gauge, at various points across the width of the surface as well as diagonally and cross wise, it's flat all over. Groovy, and all it cost me was a bit of time and elbow grease.

So, now I'm wondering what you all use for spot leveling individual high frets. I was thinking of making some short pieces of the bar for that, and sticking a thin strip of sandpaper to it so it only sands one fret while the smooth parts ride on the frets on either side. But then it occured to me that if I were to cut a perfectly flat piece of bar for this purpose it wouldn't work, because the tape and sandpaper together would be several thousandths thick, and would thus lower the fret that was being sanded below the heights of the other ones. (Forehead slap.)

So what do you guys do when you want to level just a few isolated high frets?

Edited by Mind Riot
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As mentioned , there are different ways to do this. Sometimes problem frets have to be treated individually before a total levelling is done. That is, anything that is extremely low compared to the rest should be yanked and replaced and those that cause your straight edge to rock should be filed down individually. One aspect that is (or should be) common to all methods is constant checking with your straightedge and monitoring how your marked frets wear as you progress. Levelling and crowning can be a nasty business. For new frets think about trying to get the frets in as uniformly as possible. That way you can minimize the necessity for all that levelling and filing. :D

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I have files cut in all kinds of sizes, some of which are 3" to 4" long, and I'll often use those to knock down any high frets a little, before I bring out 'The Great Equalizer' to teach all the frets a lesson.

But, with any frets that are substantially higher, I will first see if they can be seated down better to make them level with the others (even if I have to pull a fret out, and clean the slot first)

I also have a little 3.5" metal tube/glass spot leveler (and an 8" one), but the worn files somehow seek out high spots, while leaving the rest alone, better than an abrasive grit surface. But I don't go all the way with 'leveling files' because they usually are not dead flat. (although the one 4" one I have, with a wood handle, seems to be pretty much dead flat)

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But as it stands now, I have the action set at just a hair over 1/16" at the twelfth fret on the low E, and it's lower on the high E. The relief, at the moment, is about .004", measured with a feeler guage at the seventh fret with the first and seventeenth frets fretted. No real buzzing to speak of unless I hit it hard, so I know I'll have to raise things a bit more.

Good job. This is typically where we end up on our guitars, about .075 on the top and .060 on the bottom with about .005 relief. We use a radius beam with 320 to start as you stated but drop to 220 and do fret to fret leveling by hand, crown, then gradually work up to 2000 grit again by hand and then high speed polish. After a little break in on the fretboard strings practically bend themselves.

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One fellow who worded his post the most strongly said he had ruined not one, but two sets of frets trying to level the whole thing with a radius block. He said it was not a compound radius board.

but apparently the fellow who had the bad experience ended up sanding his lower frets down to nothing on the edges while still not touching the middle of the higher frets.

While I still think what I did worked just fine

Apparently it worked out fine. So your method is good. It’s as easy as that.

The guy at the other forum did not adjusted his trussrod so that his neck was straight, used a radiused blocks with wrong radius or didn’t seat his fret right. I cannot see any other ways of getting the problems he describes. BTW, what the guy says is that he have done something that ruined a complete set of frets and then directly went ahead, using the same method, and ruined the next one, without rethinking his method. If he admits that in public, I wouldn’t pay much attention to him anymore.

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One fellow who worded his post the most strongly said he had ruined not one, but two sets of frets trying to level the whole thing with a radius block. He said it was not a compound radius board.

but apparently the fellow who had the bad experience ended up sanding his lower frets down to nothing on the edges while still not touching the middle of the higher frets.

While I still think what I did worked just fine

Apparently it worked out fine. So your method is good. It’s as easy as that.

The guy at the other forum did not adjusted his trussrod so that his neck was straight, used a radiused blocks with wrong radius or didn’t seat his fret right. I cannot see any other ways of getting the problems he describes. BTW, what the guy says is that he have done something that ruined a complete set of frets and then directly went ahead, using the same method, and ruined the next one, without rethinking his method. If he admits that in public, I wouldn’t pay much attention to him anymore.

He did bring to my attention the fact that even on single radius boards sometimes the frets don't follow the radius perfectly all around, which is good to know and something I hadn't considered. In my pics, you can see that the last spots to get hit with the radius block were in the upper register, so the neck on my '51 exhibited that problem. Thankfully on mine it wasn't bad enough to make leveling with the radius block not work, and there is still plenty of fret left all around. But since I will most likely be working with cheaper guitars most if not all of the time, it's good for me to be aware of anomalies that can occur since they'll be more likely to be a problem on the cheap, mass produced necks I'll be dealing with.

I did go find a perfectly flat piece of steel bar to use as a leveler, as I described in one of my earlier posts, once this had been brought to my attention. So if my next neck exhibits the same problem, that being the frets are flatter in radius in the upper register despite it being a single radius neck, I might just go with the flow and level with the flat steel in the paths of the strings to give a slight compound radius on the fret tops. If it's already a bit flatter up high anyway, it might be the better way to go. And even if I don't, I think it's good for me to have a flat leveler as well as the radius blocks, you never know which tool will do the job best on each neck until you're there.

So yes, I don't agree with some of his points he made but he did bring some good information to my attention that will help me to read necks better and avoid making mistakes in the future. :D

Edited by Mind Riot
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Here's a link to the other thread on Harmony Central. My posts are under the same user name as here, I use it everywhere. I wrote WAY more information over there as I was hoping to get some more discussion going and show some people some info about fretwork. I also didn't want anyone thinking that my tools were the only way to do the job, so I wrote up a bunch of stuff about alternatives. I didn't think all the extra information was necessary here.

It's four loooooong pages now, so be warned.

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums...hreadid=1439881

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