Advice on Fret dressing and Fret replacement tools wanted:

Teetonetal

So I have been playing guitar for 20 years now (eeek) and have built up a bit of a collection due to various bouts of GAS over the years, I am now quite comfortable doing the basic setup but anything more complicated I have then passed on to a pro.

Trouble is I now moved from the UK to Switzerland and the cost of guitar repair is about 3 times higher then the UK and therefore I now have a couple of budget guitars which I use for teaching that need some TLC, but the cost of repair is well over the cost of rebuying the guitar. (put it this way for one guitar which needs a total re-fret, it would be cheaper for me to fly back to the UK and get it done at my usual place!)

So given that these are budget guitars I thought it might be the perfect time to start taking steps towards learning how to do the fret dress and refret myself. But I am looking for advice...

• Where is a good place to buy the tools (in the UK is fine)?
• Any brands particularly good?
• Should budget tools be avoided, for example http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00HNTNMBU/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=2PXC7YCY70GSG&coliid=I14A3IFPV6Y8B8
• What tools are essential, which are beneficial and which are luxury?

Any really good websites or books I should check out on how to do it? So far I've been trawling Youtube but as always there is a lot of rubbish mixed in with the good stuff. Happily my father is a pattern maker by trade so is very good at this sort of thing and is going to help me, but he has no interest in guitars so has never done this specific work...

Anything else?

Many thanks in advance for any advice offered!!

Andyjr1515

Ref your link, anything from Crimson guitars is going to be pretty good quality.  Great service too    

Corvus

There's different tools & ways, but this is a quickish fret-level write-up I did at another place-
http://www.gretsch-talk.com/forum/technical-side-things/101783-quickish-guide-fret-levelling.html

It's not really hard but a cheapie testbed's no bad thing - not least 'cos the crappier the neck, the more things you learn to sort out.

Favourite tools for me now are long box section sander and diamond files for local work, fallaway, crowning etc. Bits of wet & dry paper and misc things, scotchbrite, polish, tape etc etc. Very cheap.
To me part of the job is working or making nuts. Razor saws are cheap enough. Nut files aren't cheap, think mine cost around £50. But payback is fast vs paying someone else for the work.