Sharpie And Crowning

[verhoevenc]

Hey, has anyone else had this problem? When you cover the fret in sharpie to recrown in oder to see where your flat spots still are, but all the sharpie comes off before the fret is crowned!? It's driving me nuts! The sharpie all leaves, but the frets still have flat spots. Fryovanni said maybe I was getting filings that were buffing off the sharpie even though the file wasn't touching the top of the crown, so I tried blow and wiping out the file's half-round section after each pass and it didn't help at all. I've also tried both generic and sharpie brand permanent marker to no avail. Anyone have any advice that could help?

Also, I'm using a stewmac dual-grit diamond file, but have also tried it with their dual size normal fret files with the same problem.

Chris

[erikbojerik]

When recrowning, I always leave a little bit of the sharpie line on top in the very center of the fret. This usually leaves a tiny flat all along the top of the fret, but then I take a random orbital sander with 1000-grit abralon and go over all the frets, enough to smooth out the fret tops....it may still be a bit flat, but it looks pretty rounded to the eye.

Is your crowning file removing material from the edges of the fret before taking material off the top? If not, your file may be a bit oversized compared to the wire (in which case you'd be removing material from the top before the edges).

[Southpa]

Oh yeah, the right sized crowning file makes all the difference. Too big a file defeats the purpose of levelling the frets.

[biliousfrog]

are you using stainless fretwire?....stainless steel gives off a chemical that prevents certain paints & solvents from sticking to it, even "perminent" markers, so it will just rub off.