Rough Frets

[Dylanwad]

I cleaned my acoustics fretboard and frets with steel wool and then applied some lemon oil last night. It looks great but the frets feel a bit rough while playing. Where am I going wrong with this?

[WezV]

what steel wool did you use. I go for 0000 but not all brands are created equal. 0000 liberon brand is wonderful - you could make jumpers from it, 00000 colron is messy, rough and generally not worth buying. Thats ones i know i can get in the UK (axminster for liberon, B&Q for colron), not sure about the rest of the world

[Daniel Sorbera]

You could always mask the fingerboard than polish with micromesh and/or a buffing wheel and some metal polish if you want that factory fresh feel (or in this case, probably 1000x better than when it came out of the factory).

[Dylanwad]

I used Oakley fine steel wool (from B&Q), it doesn't have any 0 rating on the pack. I don't have a buffing wheel (But it is now added to the ever growing list of things to buy!) so micromesh papers sounds like a plan! Thanks guys.

[billm90]

on my frets that suck, I take 1200 grit and sand them a little.

I have a dremel with the pencil like externsion, and a mini polishing wheel. I use metal rouge, the stuff that polishes metal, and I polish them up with that.

when done, the frets feel slippery. like the strings just want to fall off of them.

[KNL Guitar Repair]

The roughness is on the tops of the frets, yes? Seems like the steel wool you used wasn't fine enough. Get some 0000 and try again.

[avdekan]

the 0000 steel wool that I have (don't remember by which company) equals to around 1500 grit paper, but I usually like going up to 2000 and then buff with a piece of cloth. If you can't find proper steel wool around where you live you can buy some wet sanding papers (no need for micromesh), 1200 - 2000 grit, and just go over the frets with them, then buff, and then apply oil.

B