Fret dressing. Leveling the frets to play good.

[Frantic_Rock]

Hey guys.

So I got my 1980 Lado standard neck through.
The frets are worn down in the centre of the fingerboard at popular places. So I"m getting buzz with med-low action.

Anybody got links to how to fret dress? What to do, what tools to use... etc...

I need to make all frets the same height, so nothing's buzzing out.
ANybody got some links to something already posted?


Thanks everybody.
You're all great!!

 

[WhoFan]

Re: Fret dressing. Leveling the frets to play good.

Hey guys.

So I got my 1980 Lado standard neck through.
The frets are worn down in the centre of the fingerboard at popular places. So I"m getting buzz with med-low action.

Anybody got links to how to fret dress? What to do, what tools to use... etc...

I need to make all frets the same height, so nothing's buzzing out.
ANybody got some links to something already posted?


Thanks everybody.
You're all great!!

to do this right it takes practice and lots of home work.... get some repair books like the Guitar Player repair book... First learn how to get started before you completely distroy a guitar.... i'm not a pro by any means but these are the tools i use

basicly tools i use for fret dresses are

1-masking tape to tape off the fingerboard and Pickups completely, good idea to mask parts of the body of the guitar if you think you'll touch it by accident with files and sand papers
2-black marker to shade the fret's so you see what you are removing and what pits in the frets remains to be leveled out
3-radius sanding blocks and good selfstick sandpaper from stew mac
4-i use a few 6 inch x3/4 wide sanding sticks with sandpaper on them for minor spot levels
5-Stewmac crowning files to recrown the frets tops..
6-320, 400 and 600 sandpaper to remove file marks after crowning
7-Steel wool to really help shin up the frets
8-a shop vac set up with a fine air filter to suck up the fileings while i'm working.....
9-various straight edges


WhoFan

 

[Zerberus]

Re: Fret dressing. Leveling the frets to play good.

Hey guys.

So I got my 1980 Lado standard neck through.
The frets are worn down in the centre of the fingerboard at popular places. So I"m getting buzz with med-low action.

Anybody got links to how to fret dress? What to do, what tools to use... etc...

I need to make all frets the same height, so nothing's buzzing out.
ANybody got some links to something already posted?


Thanks everybody.
You're all great!!

Sorry, but Fret leveling isn´t really something that can be covered in an Online tutorial. Even when learning directly from a master I guarantee that your first 3-4 tries will be unplayable....

 

[Frantic_Rock]

Re: Fret dressing. Leveling the frets to play good.

Wow thanks zerb.

That makes sense

I think im' not gonna do it then.

Still very nice information! Thanks!

 

[Jay 77]

Re: Fret dressing. Leveling the frets to play good.

Wow thanks zerb.

That makes sense

I think im' not gonna do it then.

Still very nice information! Thanks!

Hey man...take it to Songbird on Queen Street. They're quick, and do great repair work. Pricing's good too.

 

[WhoFan]

Re: Fret dressing. Leveling the frets to play good.

Sorry, but Fret leveling isn´t really something that can be covered in an Online tutorial. Even when learning directly from a master I guarantee that your first 3-4 tries will be unplayable....

First fret level i ever did made me a nervous wreck... i was in a guitar making class and i had fretted a neck that took me ages to make and shape...i ended up dressing away half the frets getting it right.... it works still to this day but ya it was not easy.....

 

[toneseeker]

Re: Fret dressing. Leveling the frets to play good.

Sorry, but Fret leveling isn´t really something that can be covered in an Online tutorial. Even when learning directly from a master I guarantee that your first 3-4 tries will be unplayable....

I disagree Zerb. The first one I did was playable, I only had to spot level two places. The third one I did was on an acoustic, and it turned out great.

I must tell you though, all of these were refrets, not existing worn frets. That would probably account for alot of my success with them.

 

[Zerberus]

Re: Fret dressing. Leveling the frets to play good.

I disagree Zerb. The first one I did was playable, I only had to spot level two places. The third one I did was on an acoustic, and it turned out great.

I must tell you though, all of these were refrets, not existing worn frets. That would probably account for alot of my success with them.

Believe it or not, a properly leveled and refretted board DOES make it a bit easier... that´s probably most of why I was taught to refret before I was taught to dress

 

[toneseeker]

Re: Fret dressing. Leveling the frets to play good.

Yeah, I was pretty certain that the refret had a lot to do with those turning out as good as they did. I eliminated a lot of variables by having a new neck that was dead level and new frets.
My biggest problem was that I pressed a couple of the frets in too hard.