Time To Refret?

[chcjunior]

The Piezo pickup has been installed in my Fender. Now I want to set up my old Yamaha acoustic. There's two questions I have regarding such.

What's a good benchmark for knowing it's time to replace your frets? There are somewhat detectable grooves on the 3rd, 5th and 8th frets....but the grooves aren't so bad that the strings catch on it.

Also, the bridge is starting to get some grooves in the from the strings. I'm assuming the grooves will start to effect my intonation as they get worse? On that note, is the intonation setting on acoustics somewhat limited since the bridge is always a fixed distance from the nut? I could shorten string length by the raising the height of the saddle but that would (of course) raise the action.


I guess a third question is does anyone know of a good online resource for purchasing refretting tools and wire?

 

[beandip]

it might only need a level and recrown, but I cant determine that from 10,000 miles away, lol. Tech. speaking, you need to recrown whenever the grooves appear, but you can ge away with it. take it in and have them look at it. As for your bridge, where are the grooves happening, on the saddle, or the bridge itself. both are fine, to a certain extent, and once it gets too bad you can replace the saddle, ramp the bridge, or replace it entirely. Stew mac for your materials, and Dan E.'s Guitar Player repair guide.

 

[Lewguitar]

For me, a guitar is ready for a refret when I can no longer get the meat of my finger wrapped around the string to bend it with control. When the frets are to low my finger just slips off it when I try to do a nice bend. Lew

 

[chcjunior]

Already have the Dan Erlweine book...so look like I'm hitting Stew Mac and having some fun. If I can do anything about it I'm done having other people do my tech work. $300 for a refret? Not a chance. I'll practice on a pawn shop guitar I pick up for $20 before I do the real deal. Thanks....I'm going in.

 

[Ez74]

vintage guitar magazine has an article in the new issue about a CNC type machine that sands and crowns frets... it really seems like a cool thing and very precise. They say it cost $200 to have your guitar done.... but there are only 3 places in the US that have the machines

 

[orbiter]

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/skgs/sk/fretcrowning.htm

this is an ok guide to level and dress.

dans books are great too.

~G

 

[MDS]

That machine is called The Plek. It is totally amazing. We have a shop here in LA with one and my teacher got his Tele Plek'd. It played UNBELIEVABLY well. The intonation was great. He also talked the guy into giving USC students 40% off, so I've been dying to do it to one of my axes.