Fret Slotting

[ProfDrum]

I just noticed something, looking at this photo:

Pic

Now, those fret slots look like they have a sort of channel going into them, rather than a straight cut, is this normal?

Cheers,

Drum

[Rick500]

The edge of a triangular or square file is often run along the fret slots before putting in the frets, the put a little bit of a chamfer on the sides of the slot. It looks like someone cut really wide chamfers in that one.

You don't want to big enough chamfers that they extend beyond the width of the fret wire.

Maybe they did it for some other reason I'm unaware of...

[RFR]

It looks to me like the frets were glued in with epoxy or superglue, then the excess was scraped off with a razor blade. I think it is just razor marks.

Roman

[jmrentis]

How strange? I'm wondering like Rick if there is some reason for those channels. To make such a channel would be a pain because even with a V shape channel you'd have to make a flat section for the wire to sit properly, otherwise it might want to tilt in one direction or the other. I though maybe it was a strange way to lose fret height, by sinking it slightly into the board, but I honestly don't know. Its definitely a channel because you can see some pours/grain and how the pours open and look bigger at the channel due to the angle of the channel (terrible explanation). Definitely an interesting question! Hope someone knows for sure. As Rick said, you want a slight chamfer on the slot edges, but it should barely noticeable even up close. J