Mind Riot

I actually don't weld at all, my father offered to help me out with that. He's quite the knowledgeable and handy old gentleman. Every time I come up with some crazy scheme for building something instead of buying it I'll usually ask him for a consult on the design, to see if he notices anything that could be done better. He sometimes sees a simpler way of doing things that I might have overthought. Between my DIY electronic drum set, my acoustic panels, and a bunch of other guitar or music related projects I'm always annoying the wife with something.

I actually hadn't seen that jig before, but it seems like a neat idea. I was just thinking of using the steel because I had some scrap laying around that might work but I didn't have any acceptable piece of wood to use, so I would have to buy it if I wanted a wood version. It also seemed a little simpler to just drill and cut threads into the steel for the support rods than it would be to worry about threaded inserts and whatnot. Again, just trying to see if I can engineer it in my head in a way that might work with what I already have. So does it sound like this would work? I can't really think of anything about it that wouldn't, unless the steel stock bent a bit under the pressure (which I doubt) but even then the support rods could just be adjusted back and forth with the headstock jack until it all read straight. Thank you very much for the links, the Turner Levelers seem like a really good idea and I may just have some steel or aluminum angle iron laying around I could brutally force to become tools. I could even true them up against my other steel stock levelers that are already flat, using some metal cutting sandpaper and elbow grease. I think I just may retire to the shop now and see what I can see. I'll definitely check back later, this site just rules for finding out stuff like this. Thanks!

The steel I have in the shop is 1" by 1", with about 1/8" thick sides. I was either going to stack and weld two sections of it together in the spots where the rods would be so there would be more height adjustment space, or buy some 1" by 2" stock. I may be doing refrets in the future (perhaps sooner than I think) but at the moment I'm still just leveling the frets on mine and my friends guitars. This already has a lot of differences from the Stew Mac jig, I'm pretty much trying to make it as simple as possible with what I have on hand. I don't think I've heard of the Turner Levelers. I'll look them up and see what I can find, or if you have a link that would be great too. I think the basic idea of the neck jig's function is pretty clear to me, so I'll just be working out the little things to make sure everything lines up and fits right and has enough room to adjust and all that detail stuff. Unless there's something big I'm missing.

Hi all. I'm considering building a neck jig to work on guitars. I've been doing fret levels for a bit less than a year now, and thus far I've done about a dozen of them, just on my own guitars and a few friends'. They seem to be turning out pretty well, but I haven't been able to get things really super low and clean when it comes to the action. I've done the levels a few different ways. First I used radius blocks. Then I used some flat steel stock with sandpaper, following the center line and maintaining the radius. Recently I tried leveling compound, following the string paths, using the steel. All of them have turned out at least decent, but I've noticed a few disturbing things. For instance, on the neck I leveled compound I checked everything out with my Stew Mac straightedge in each string path. Everything read perfectly flat once I was done from the first fret to the twelfth in each string path, then it also read flat from the twelfth to the end of the board following the slope of the fallaway I put into it. Looked dandy, and I recrowned and polished and strung it up. But then when I was setting the guitar up and setting the action, I couldn't get it quite as low as I was hoping (specifically, I can't get it below 3/64" on the high E at the twelfth fret without buzzing in the upper register). I looked at it closely, and using both my straightedge and the string itself as a straightedge it appears that when the neck is under tension it develops a slight dip in the 13th to 17th fret region, right next to the neck pocket. We're only talking about thousandths here, but it's enough to hinder my setup efforts. From everything I've read, this sounds like just the sort of thing the neck jig was designed to overcome. So I started thinking about how I could go about building one. I have the Guitar Player Repair Guide, and I have looked at Stew Mac at their pictures and diagrams, and I think I understand how the thing works pretty well. So I'm just going to run my idea by you folks, and I would greatly appreciate it if you would tell me if I'm missing something. I have access to some scrap steel and bolts and such, so the first design variation is that the central spine of the jig would be a length of rectangular steel bar stock. This would have thick enough sides to keep things stiff, and all else being equal should be stronger than the wood version. For the neck support rods, I was planning on using some long bolts or threaded rod and drilling and cutting threads into the steel spine, so that the neck support rods would be threaded into it and could be raised and lowered by turning them through the threads. The steel would have about 1/8" thick walls and the threads should be able to take well over a hundred pounds of pressure, which seems like way more than anything neck work would impose. Of course, the bolts would have either rubberized cork or plastic tops on them to protect the neck. I have a turnbuckle that I will be modifying to become a headstock jack, and it will again have protective cork or plastic on the end that comes in contact with the guitar. I would buy a strap and cut two slots in the sides of the steel spine to run it through, and have the strap be able to be tightened to hold the headstock down. The body platform would be plywood just like the norm, and again would have threaded inserts and bolts with cork to support the body, and I would buy a ratchet strap to hold things down. The only thing is that I wasn't planning on installing or using the dial indicators. The original neck jig didn't seem to have them, and I'll be checking the neck for straightness against my straightedge, both when setting the truss rod straight with the strings on and when using the turnbuckle to force it back into a straight position. I can understand how the dial indicators would make things more precise, but as of now I think I can build this thing for free, using only scrap parts I have available in the shop (save the straps). Am I correct in assuming that if I got the neck perfectly straight under string tension, then removed the strings and forced the neck back perfectly straight with the turnbuckle and strap, then supported it with the rods that this would essentially be the function of the neck jig? Am I missing something, and the dial indicators are really essential? Basically, I just want to know if my design is sound (assuming the rods are positioned well and all that sort of thing) or if there's something fundamental I'm missing here. I appreciate any thoughts or help you all can give me!

I'll be happy to post some sound clips as soon as I can do anything with it other than make horribly out of tune warbles. If we or I were to do this again, it would probably be an original. The conversion was fun and low risk because the guitar was basically worthless as it was, but with all the work we did to it it wouldn't have been much harder (and in some ways a lot easier) to just build it to start with. But I personally haven't built a guitar from scratch yet, I've just done some heavy modifications and such to existing guitars. With each of these little projects I do I get a little more confidence and experience, and I get the feeling I'll be building one from scratch before too long. Oh man, Johnson is all over the place here (Northern California/Southern Oregon). All the mom and pop shops sell them to beginners. Even the Indonesian made Squiers I've come across have been light years better than the Johnsons in quality. We put some nice bookmatched alder veneer over both the top and the back. The body, although alder, was a really hideous multipiece. We wanted a natural look, so the veneer seemed a good option, and it really ended up pushing us toward the unique finish we ended up with. I detailed it all in the second thread I linked to, it really was an interesting and not always smooth build. There were a lot of problems, and opportunities for creative solutions. Quite well, actually, I'm surprised. My friend and I did this with the understanding that if it didn't work out we would just hang it on the wall and we wouldn't stress over it. This was a fun project, not a real serious build. But it actually turned out really nice. I looked up some setup specs on a fretless guitar website and cut the nut accordingly, and did the setup. It actually plays really easy and smooth, but it's certainly a whole different instrument with a different attack. It takes a much lighter touch than a regular guitar. The finish was the most fun part, and the part we were both most pleased with. Even though it sprang out of trying to cover up some really ugly wood, we thought it turned out to be a pretty cool and unique look and I'll probably use it again on some other project.

Hi all. I got the wacky idea to try to convert a guitar into a fretless after I saw some videos of people playing them online. I didn't know how well this would turn out, so I did it on a dirt cheap Johnson strat copy to minimize the risk involved. I didn't document the process here, but I did on Harmony Central, so I thought I could just post the links to the threads so anyone interested can take a look. It was a very fun project, and I certainly welcome any comments. Here's the completed guitar thread, with some before and after pics: http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums...d.php?t=1685835 And here's the build thread were I chronicled everything we did in detail: http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums...d.php?t=1661585 Hope you all like it, and any thoughts welcome.

I got to take a look at the cans finally today. It's made by Rudd, and says Duracat-V Vinyl Lacquer on the can, semi gloss.

Hi all. I did a search for 'vinyl lacquer' but all I could find was stuff on decals and sealer. A friend of mine works in a cabinet shop, and he and I have done a couple small projects on guitars using some of the tools and such (with the owners permission, of course). One of the things we did was cut a headstock to a new shape and refinish it. Now, this shop has a ventilated spray booth and gun setup that we used to do this. But the clear that they use in this shop is shown on the drums to be some kind of vinyl lacquer clear. I've heard of vinyl sealers and such, but I personally hadn't run across vinyl clear before. The stuff sprays even and looks good, and dries in a ridiculously short amount of time (about 30 minutes until you can scuff sand and respray, then about twenty minutes between each coat after that). The owner tells me that it is not a catalyzed finish, and that it is very hard and durable and resistant to water and chemicals. He finishes all of his cabinets with it. The headstock we did with it (as well as a couple other projects) looks great, and it seems to be a very tough finish that doesn't need to be very thick. I've heard of nitro, poly, and wax or oil based finishes being used on guitars but never this stuff. So since I couldn't find anything in my search I was wondering if some of the more knowledgeable people here who know more about finishes than me could tell me about this stuff. What it's like, has anyone ever used it for guitars, why or why not, that sort of thing. I'm just curious as I can't seem to find much info about it as far as relating to guitars, but it seems to work well and I might use it on future projects. Thank you all for any thoughts you might be willing to share.

My thread about my first fret leveling is on this forum, just down a ways. I also started a thread about it on Harmony Central: http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums...hreadid=1439881 That one turned out great, but there was also some points brought up that made me more aware of how different methods can be needed for different necks. What I did for that first job worked for that job, but if a neck behaved differently it might end up not working so well. Specifically, it was brought to my attention that even with a factory, single radius fretboard the frets don't always follow the radius of the board exactly. So using a radius block like I did may result in removing too much material from certain frets or areas of the board if you're working on a neck where the frets don't follow the radius just right. So I started looking into getting some different tools for leveling. I had used the radius blocks with sandpaper on them for my first job. Now I wanted to look into getting some flat levelers. These can be used for leveling smaller strips or areas of the fretboard at a time, which allows you to level accurately even if the board's radus isn't perfect all the way up. This can often result in removing less overall material from the frets (which is always a goal), and is perhaps a more elegant solution. I went on a scavenger hunt and found a length of rectangular steel tubing that was perfectly flat on one of it's surfaces for about 10 1/2 inches (flat to within .0015" over the whole surface, anyway). I then cut some pieces from the same piece of steel, attached sandpaper to my perfectly flat piece, and rubbed the other ones on that surface until they too were flat. This took some elbow grease, I must say. Removing even a few thousands from a piece of steel by hand is nothing to sneeze at. So now I had one 10 1/2" length of flat steel surface, one 4 1/2" length, and one 3" length. And once my new nut for my new blond Squier '51 came in, I didn't have to wait for anything else. Now, unfortunately I didn't have access to a digital camera when I did the blond '51 on Tuesday night. But a friend of mine who is just starting out playing has a little black Squier strat that came with one of those starter packs. The frets needed some lovin', so I did them tonight and took some pics. The method was the same for the blond '51 two nights ago, although that one went much smoother (read on for details). The first time I did a fret job I went out to my fathers shop several miles away out in the country to do it. It worked fine, but taking the guitar from the warm, stable interior climate of my apartment out into the cold shop (even though I had the heater running) messed with the neck a bit, and I almost messed up the frets before I caught it and readjusted the truss rod. I also learned from that experience that clamping the guitar was not necessary, and I decided to do both of these jobs in my home. My 4x12 cab with a towel over it served nicely as a makeshift workbench. So for the '51 that's not pictured, I removed the nut, taped up the board, and straightened the neck and colored the fret tops. On the Strat, I wasn't replacing the nut at this time and I also didn't have a spare set of strings. The strings that were on there were very new anyway, as I had replaced them and did a setup for my friend not too long ago. So in the case of the Strat, I taped over the nut to protect it and slackened the strings and pulled them to the sides of the neck so they'd be out of the way. Then I taped up the board, colored the frets, and set up my paper stack for neck support like last time. http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpics/Stratprepped.jpg Of course, I checked the neck for straightness all over with my straightedge and a .0015" feeler gauge. http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpic...traightedge.jpg I had left the sandpaper on my levelers after I did the '51 two nights ago. This gold Fre-Cut stuff lasts quite well, even on metal. This is my 10 1/2" and 4 1/2" levelers; I didn't get out my 3" for this shot because I didn't think I'd need it. In fact, on the Strat I ended up using all three of them. http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpic...ratlevelers.jpg On this particular neck, the frets followed the radius pretty well (9.5", if you're wondering). So I didn't want to try to shape a compound radius into the fret tops like I might if the frets flattened out significantly toward the upper register. So I leveled using strokes that stayed parallel to the center line of the neck, so as to preserve the cylindrical radius. http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpic...ratleveling.jpg Here's where things really go in two different directions. On the '51, the frets needed next to no leveling at all. I just kissed the tops of the frets with the long 10 1/2" leveler after blending in one high area with the 4 1/2" one. In fact, to my surprise, there was so little material removed on the frets of the '51 that no recrowning was necessary! I couldn't even recrown them if I tried, the flats left on the fret tops by the leveler were so narrow because so little material had been removed that my crowning file couldn't get them any thinner. On that '51, things just came together nicely at the factory that day. The little black Squier Strat I just did was another story. This one had a few problems that made it a bit more work. First of all, the first two frets were higher than the group of frets above them, which threw off my straightedge until I leveled them down a bit. Took me a minute to figure it out. But the bigger problem was a rather troublesome, annoying rising tongue at the end of the board. For those unfamiliar with the term, it's a condition where the last few frets are higher than the ones before them, either from wood swelling, a bad glue joint where the fretboard meets the neck there, frets that aren't seated properly, or just having some frets that simply sit a bit higher at that spot. They seemed to be seated fine on this guitar, and I'm simply not at this point equipped to deal with any of the other factors that can cause a rising tongue, so I just had to level them out. This took some more removal of material than the rest of the board, leaving them with a wider flat than the other areas. The frets on this Strat were wide (.108") but not hugely tall (a fairly standard .047" on average height), so the flats in this pic (aside from the last four or five frets where the rising tongue occured) might make it appear as though there was a lot of material removed. In fact, aside from the tongue, the overall average fret height on this guitar only decreased by .007" after all the leveling and recrowning was done. (The blond '51, having been such a stupidly easy fret job, only lost .003" in average fret height after leveling). http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpics/Stratflats.jpg After the frets were leveled (which I checked all over the board with the straightedge and feeler gauge), I added a bit of fallaway to the upper register. On both the blond '51 and this Strat, the fallaway almost seemed to already be there, it really didn't take much. Once this was done, I recolored the tops of the frets, busted out my diamond crowning file, and went to town. It felt good to use it on the Strat. After I did the '51 and it didn't need any recrowning, I kind of felt like a rube sitting there with this $80 file in my hand that didn't even need to be used. Even though I had to lower the last four or five frets more than the others, they still had enough height to be able to crown them without any trouble. (I measured them after I was done, and they are about .035", which is pretty low, but not unmanagable). http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpics/Stratrecrown.jpg Once the recrowning was done, I took some 400 and 600 grit sandpaper to the frets to remove some scratches, then polished with 0000 steel wool and Brasso metal polish. I then removed all the tape and wiped off the guitar to get rid of sanding dust and steel wool shavings. I then retightened the strings and tuned up, and did some action adjustments. I set her up at 5/64" on the low E (measured at the 12th fret), and 1 /16" on the high E, with the rest of the strings following the radius of the board. http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpics/Stratdone.jpg She plays smooth and clean, and doesn't look half bad either. I hope my friend will be pleased, but she's just starting out and probably can't really tell the difference yet. I did it more for me, so I could learn and get some more experience. As I said before, the methods used were pretty much the same on the '51 I did the other night, except it needed much less work in general than the Strat. But since I didn't get any pics of that job, I thought I'd just throw the '51 on the "workbench" and snap a couple, so at least everybody can see the new nut, shiny happy pretty frets, and nice low action setup. Here she is, setup the same way as the Strat with 5/64" on the low E, 1/16" on the high E, and the rest following the radius. This one's stock except for the new nut and the GFS top loader bridge. http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpics/Blond51neck.jpg http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y42/MRpics/Blond51whole.jpg Both of these guitars turned out great, and they both play smooth and easy. I think I actually like using the flat steel levelers more than the radius blocks. They're a bit more subtle approach, give me more control over where material is being removed, and seem to do a great job. I need more guitars to work on, I think I'm getting hooked. But my Schecter doesn't need any work done, it had great fret work from the factory. I might do my bass next, but after that I think I'll have to start trolling some more of my friends looking for someone who has a guitar in need of some fret lovin'.

You could try Poplar for bodies but is it not that much fun to work If they use it for coffin's then obviously Poplar is good for bodies. (Should have had another bad joke alert) Brian. It has a stiff quality. Compared to other tonewoods it can be rather dead sounding.

Well, I returned the ScratchX and exchanged it for some Meguiar's #7 Show Car Glaze, then I went looking for the swirl remover. After driving all over town, I found one place that had one bottle of the #9 Swirl Remover 2.0 so I picked it up. I tried them both out on my Schecter last night, and they cleaned up a good amount of the little pick scratches and polished it to a nice shine. There's still a lot of deeper scratches that I imagine I'd have to get some more aggressive compound to get rid of, but to be honest I'm not the most demanding person when it comes to finishes. There isn't a haze of pick scratches near the high strings anymore, and she has a nice shine, so I'm happy. Maybe sometime in the future I might really go at it to get a perfect gloss with no scratches, but probably not. A guitar is going to be handled constantly, it's going to get scratches, so I'm pretty content with what I have. Thanks for all the information!

Yes, the #9 is what I would like to find if possible, it's what Dan Erlewine recommends in his book and what a lot of people use with good results. The #9, according to some of the reading I've done on the Meguiar's website, is from their "professional" line of products, and contains no silicone. The ScratchX is from their "consumer" line of products, and I can't find a straight answer about whether or not it has silicone anywhere. I did spot some 3M Rubbing Compound that listed ingredients that I could pick up for light scratch removal and then follow with polish. No mention of silicone in the ingredient list on the back (silica is the abrasive in that stuff). Thanks for responding, if anyone else has any insight I would appreciate it as well.

Hi all. I recently managed to put some nice scratches on my black Schecter when I removed the bridge pickup and bezel to cut the pickup height spring so I could adjust it higher. The height adjustment screw put some rather deep scratches on the top, despite my laying down shop towels on the body to protect it. It cut right through them and left scratches. So I wet sanded them out with Micro Mesh, and got rid of all of them except two deep spots that I suspect are down past the clear, so I left them. They're quite tiny, I won't have any problem living with them. I used the Micro Mesh all the way up to 12000, so the gloss is indistinguishable from the rest of the guitar unless you hold it at a certain angle in the light, then you can tell the patina doesn't quite match. Neither the stock surface nor the repaired surface look bad, they just look ever so slightly different. I was also thinking to myself that it was time to polish this guitar. It's got the usual light scratches and swirls over most of it from use. I clean it regularly, but I've never actually polished it, with a nourishing polish meant for paint. I've had it for just over two years now, and it was new when I got it. So I went looking for some swirl remover and polish at the auto parts store, and came across this Meguiar's ScratchX swirl remover. I'm also planning on picking up some of the Mirror Glaze #7 tomorrow, but I just got the ScratchX today. I was planning on using the ScratchX to remove some of the light scratches then polish with the #7. But I know some polishes and cleaners contain silicone, and I don't want something I apply now to mess me up later if I need to do drop fills or touch up work at some point. I looked around Meguiar's website and forum, and someone asked this very question directly. The Admin danced around it, saying that ScratchX was "formulated to work on cured paints" whereas Swirl Remover #9 "was safe for body shop work". This makes me think that ScratchX does contain silicone but he doesn't want to admit it and have to deal with some of the paranoia about it. But in the world of guitar finishes, concern about silicone is justified. So what I'm wondering is, does anyone know FOR A FACT whether or not Meguiar's ScratchX swirl remover contains silicone? My information I've found so far makes me think that it does, and I may take it back tomorrow if I can. I don't know what else to get, Meguiar's is a brand I trust becuase of everything I've heard about it, but I need to get something that will work for the special needs of guitar finishes.

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

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.

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?

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?

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?

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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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

This feels like a stupid question, but I figure even though I can't think of any feasible way of doing this without serious risk maybe there's some old trick I don't know about. My main guitar is a Schecter 007 Blackjack seven string. It's a wonderful, very musical instrument, and I love almost everything about it. The only real problem I have with it is that the fret markers are what looks like black pearl or pearloid dots, and they are very hard to see on the rosewood, which is also a very dark piece. I never thought not being able to see the fretboard markers would mess me up, but it does throw me a bit sometimes higher up on the neck. I can't think of any way to lighten them up to make them more visible without danger to the fretboard or having to put new inlays in, but I thought I'd ask since there's so many experienced people here.

I just thought I'd pop in here and give my experience. I bought five 8" radius blocks from guitarguy on ebay (though I don't think I ever mentioned to him that I heard about them from this site), and they're quite lovely. Very solid quartersawn wood. I'll be using them for fret leveling myself. I got them in 9.5", 10", 12", 14", and 16" radii. Sealed them with a rattle can poly finish, and I think they'll last me a long time. I wouldn't hesitate to buy from him again if I needed any more tools of this type.

Any time someone posts something related to scalloping a neck, this pic invariably comes up. I uploaded it to my personal photobucket account to make sure I'll always have it.

Ever since I heard about stainless steel fretwire, I thought it was a fascinating concept. Little to no wear, holds a polish well, virtually indestructible as far as the normal rigors of guitar and bass playing. Nowadays it seems to be becoming a bit more common, so I had some questions for those who have installed it, leveled and dressed it, just worked with it in general in the event that I end up using it someday. I've read all I can find on it, both on this forum and anywhere else I can find information. I apologize if I missed some information and some of these questions have already been answered. First off, as far as installing SS fretwire. I've read some posts where people have said that SS fretwire is virtually impossible to install with a hammer, and a press is essential. They stated that SS has a much stronger tendency to develop popped up fret ends due to it's stiffness. Is this the case? Is a press the only real viable way to install them, or has someone done it with a hammer successfully? Also related to installing, is there some kind of special end nippers people use when dealing with SS wire? Or do the normal flush ground nippers like from Stew Mac work, but just wear out faster? Now, as far as leveling SS fretwire. I have radius blocks that I'm going to use with the gold Fre-Cut sandpaper for leveling frets. Would this kind of sandpaper cut SS fret tops, or would I need to get myself some kind of flat diamond file to make into a traditional fret leveling file? This sandpaper is supposed to be for cutting metal, but SS is a whole other ballgame from nickel silver frets. And lastly, I've read that for recrowning SS frets, a diamond crowning file is essential. Other places, I've read that you can do it with a traditional file, but "you won't like it". I don't really know what that means. I have a traditional double sided toothed file for recrowning from Stew Mac, but I've only had it a week or so and I could probably still return it and get a diamond recrowning file. Is a diamond crowning file a must have for SS wire? The reason I ask all of this is that as my guitars age and are leveled and dressed, eventually they will need a refret. And I would strongly consider refretting them with SS wire when that time comes, but I want to invest in the right tools, and not in tools that I'll have to supplement with specialty stuff later when I can get the right stuff for the job now. Thanks in advance for any information, I really appreciate this forum and all the experience there is to draw upon here.

I agree. Melvyn, I have your book and have had it for several years. A friend of mine had it and as soon as I saw it I was engrossed in reading it, and he eventually gave it to me as a gift. It's an extremely informative and fun read. I was really shocked to hear you were a member here. It's kind of like meeting a celebrity when you're not expecting it. EDIT: Oh, and when I saw this thread, the first thing that went through my mind was "I remember reading something in that Melvyn Hiscock book about parana pine. I think he said it was a good body wood similar to alder, cheap and plentiful, but unfortunately often very knotty." Then I come in here to relate it, and the author himself has already answered. Kinda cool.

I've been using my scrap neck for testing out tools, so yeah, I've been crowning without leveling first. That's why I tried to sand a flat onto the fret top, to simulate a single leveled fret and see how my crowning file worked. But when I tried to sand a flat onto there, I made my stupid mistake I described above.