Fret height consistency

[Crusader]

I found a few high frets in my Strat and Tele but it seems I file more off the top than what the gap looks like at the bottom. So I'm wondering if the height of the fret wire is consistent. What is other people's experience? Fretwire I use is Stewmac wide/tall

 

 

 

[henrim]

I haven’t measured and it would require a special setup to measure a complex shape like fret wire. There is a lot of room for error with just a micrometer. That said, a quick test with micrometer on an unbent Dunlop wire gave me rather uniform results.

Anyway, everything has a tolerance. I would expect the tolerance to be within couple of hundreds of mm on a fret wire. Although I don’t know where stewmac gets their wire.

I would think that the differences come when the wire is bent and hammered. Regular fret wire is relatively soft material after all.

[mistermikev]

i've only ever used jescar... but have not found this to be the case.  it has been my experience that using a $50 straight edge and getting things perfectly flat before fretting... along with getting the right fret depth, cleaning the slots, bending my fret wire myself to a very close radius, and using a triangle file on the edges before pressing... i hardly have to take anything off to get rid of the marker on every fret.  I've also become sensitive to not making the mistake of bringing my wood inside just before fretting, or fretting in proximity to when it has rained.  seems like every little humidity change makes a big dif in that regard.  ymmv.

[Bizman62]

My gut tells me that @mistermikev may well be on the right track. No matter how well seasoned your wood is or how flat you've managed to plane and sand it, the moment there's a change in the climate it will live. Length wise it won't change much, it's more about the width. Which brings us to the question about directions of a piece of wood: Length is easy, it's along the grain. But width v.s, thickness, which is which? Easy to tell on a plank but is there a difference if it's quarter sawn or slab sawn?

Anyhow, wood will swell with moisture but it doesn't do it evenly. Some spots suck more moisture than others. Heck, the moisture might even be the oil or lacquer! I just checked our factory built kitchen table which has a layer of poly on it and sure enough there was perceptable bumps. Even if you get your fretboard perfectly flat and hammer the frets in right away and find out they're mostly level, you may find high spots after a month or so just because the fretboard lives.

There's only one cure to that: Use wood that you know has been stored in various conditions for half a century so it has lived as much as it ever will. Living in certain parts of Arizona helps as the climate is dry most of the year. Back in the day I read that Fender Custom Shop agents scavenged the wood storages of deceased woodworkers in certain parts of Southern USA for the driest wood available.

 

[Crusader]

Thanks for the replies, all good advice although I'm pretty sure I checked the flatness just before putting frets in. Also, putting frets in might cause some back-bow, but I imagine that would result in all the frets being high...? Could it be (look at first photo) it looks like a lot has been taken off but is actually consistent with the tiny gap under the fret?

[mistermikev]

I'd say... when you are dealing with frets you are dealing with very small differences in heights.  in your pic... that gap there could easily account for that much more off the fret.   just one aholes o.  look at the fret behind it... you can just make out a little gap on the end and guess what - when you flat filed it there are flat spots on the ends.

all that said... I wouldn't redo this... just more crown work... s/b fine.