Fret levelling...

Jazzthat

SteveRobinson said:

No, I use double sided tape

Oh ok , thanks .

SlopeSoarer

SteveRobinson said:

SlopeSoarer said:

Is it possible to get long lengths of finer grades of grit/wet n dry paper? Or do you just butt up to each other on the beam (oo-er... sounds a bit wrong!)?

I buy abrasives on a roll and cut it into strips to fit my sanding beam. I start with P180 btw.

Can I ask where you get the abrasives from and how fine they get go? Cheers Simon

SteveRobinson

I can't remember, I've had the roll for years. Axminister probably.

After the beam I use Stewmac diamond coated fret levelers then after recrowning increasingly fine abrasives and Micromesh pads to polish the frets.

SlopeSoarer

Thanks Steve

chris_john

I'm also a novice at fret jobs. I bought a fret rocker tool to check high spots, and I don't really understand what I have found.
Using the tool, I can see that a fret is higher than the two frets either side of it. However, the fret next to it is also higher than  the adjacent frets.  I'm not sure what's going on there. 

SteveRobinson

chris_john said:

I'm also a novice at fret jobs. I bought a fret rocker tool to check high spots, and I don't really understand what I have found.
Using the tool, I can see that a fret is higher than the two frets either side of it. However, the fret next to it is also higher than  the adjacent frets.  I'm not sure what's going on there. 

Have you checked that your neck is straight? If it's backbowed then it will rock on most frets

chris_john

SteveRobinson said:

chris_john said:

I'm also a novice at fret jobs. I bought a fret rocker tool to check high spots, and I don't really understand what I have found.
Using the tool, I can see that a fret is higher than the two frets either side of it. However, the fret next to it is also higher than  the adjacent frets.  I'm not sure what's going on there. 

Have you checked that your neck is straight? If it's backbowed then it will rock on most frets

I don't have easy access to luthier tools (I'm in South Korea), so I had to rely on eyeballing it to check if it is straight. Is there a quick 'hack' to do this without the notched ruler or straightedge?

digitalscream

chris_john said:

SteveRobinson said:

chris_john said:

I'm also a novice at fret jobs. I bought a fret rocker tool to check high spots, and I don't really understand what I have found.
Using the tool, I can see that a fret is higher than the two frets either side of it. However, the fret next to it is also higher than  the adjacent frets.  I'm not sure what's going on there. 

Have you checked that your neck is straight? If it's backbowed then it will rock on most frets

I don't have easy access to luthier tools (I'm in South Korea), so I had to rely on eyeballing it to check if it is straight. Is there a quick 'hack' to do this without the notched ruler or straightedge?

If you've got a Dremel or similar, you can make your own notched straight edge - just get a metal ruler from Homebase (or wherever), mark the fret positions and cut 'em out. It won't be absolutely perfect, but it should be within a usable tolerance.

ICBM

digitalscream said:

I've also discovered that the area that the locking nut sits on is hollow below the fretboard, meaning it's going to be impossible to screw it in without a lot of filling. I suspect I may end up gluing it.

That's a very serious problem.

Bear in mind that if you dive-bomb it, the nut has to resist almost the entire string tension since the part on the headstock side is still at full tension whereas the part over the fingerboard is almost slack.

This is why they're often done with two Allen bolts right through the neck instead of wood screws from the top.

digitalscream

ICBM said:

digitalscream said:

I've also discovered that the area that the locking nut sits on is hollow below the fretboard, meaning it's going to be impossible to screw it in without a lot of filling. I suspect I may end up gluing it.

That's a very serious problem.

Bear in mind that if you dive-bomb it, the nut has to resist almost the entire string tension since the part on the headstock side is still at full tension whereas the part over the fingerboard is almost slack.

This is why they're often done with two Allen bolts right through the neck instead of wood screws from the top.

Yep, that occurred to me as well. Fortunately, it's highly unlikely I'll ever use the trem on it; I never use them, it's only going on there because that's how the body's routed.

The most I'll do is, if I put a D-Tuna on there, use the D-Tuna itself as the equivalent of behind-the-nut bends on the bottom string.

digitalscream

Sooo...I decided to do something really silly, and use my original Jaden Tele as my learning experience (due to some unfortunate circumstances, the frets were really uneven). For reference, it's my most expensive guitar.

For a start...I somewhat underestimated the challenge of levelling stainless steel frets. I went through all of the sandpaper I had in the house, and still had to bring a couple of frets down by hand with a file.

There were a couple of flat spots that I'd missed when crowning, but only marginally - they don't affect the playability or intonation, so...go me.

The only issue I've got is that the 22nd (last) fret is a bit high, so bends above the 15th fret on the top two strings are choking. I'll strip it and sort that in the morning.

That aside, though...it's gone from being the worst-playing guitar I've got to the best, with a couple of hours' elbow grease. I'm pretty chuffed with that

Jazzthat

This is the way  
If it was me , I would prepare myself for it . I only say that , because I know quite a few grades of stainless steel well and I know how bastard of a job it can be !

Any photos of how it looks like now and  before ?

digitalscream

Cheers

No photos, I'm afraid, 'cos my phone doesn't seem to want to focus that close.

Just trying to wake up, then I'm de-stringing it and sorting out the last few frets. On the bright side, now that this guitar's done...the stainless steel frets mean I'm unlikely to ever need to do it again. The rest of my guitars have nickel frets, which definitely seems like the way forward for practice purposes...

guitarfishbay

digitalscream said:

Sooo...I decided to do something really silly, and use my original Jaden Tele as my learning experience (due to some unfortunate circumstances, the frets were really uneven). For reference, it's my most expensive guitar.

For a start...I somewhat underestimated the challenge of levelling stainless steel frets. I went through all of the sandpaper I had in the house, and still had to bring a couple of frets down by hand with a file.

There were a couple of flat spots that I'd missed when crowning, but only marginally - they don't affect the playability or intonation, so...go me.

The only issue I've got is that the 22nd (last) fret is a bit high, so bends above the 15th fret on the top two strings are choking. I'll strip it and sort that in the morning.

That aside, though...it's gone from being the worst-playing guitar I've got to the best, with a couple of hours' elbow grease. I'm pretty chuffed with that

That sounds pretty successful for a first go!

digitalscream

guitarfishbay said:

digitalscream said:

Sooo...I decided to do something really silly, and use my original Jaden Tele as my learning experience (due to some unfortunate circumstances, the frets were really uneven). For reference, it's my most expensive guitar.

For a start...I somewhat underestimated the challenge of levelling stainless steel frets. I went through all of the sandpaper I had in the house, and still had to bring a couple of frets down by hand with a file.

There were a couple of flat spots that I'd missed when crowning, but only marginally - they don't affect the playability or intonation, so...go me.

The only issue I've got is that the 22nd (last) fret is a bit high, so bends above the 15th fret on the top two strings are choking. I'll strip it and sort that in the morning.

That aside, though...it's gone from being the worst-playing guitar I've got to the best, with a couple of hours' elbow grease. I'm pretty chuffed with that

That sounds pretty successful for a first go!

Yep, it was! My second attempt at the upper frets was almost a success - whole tone bends are fine, but any more than that still chokes out. Needs another going over, but...I was too confident and put a set of Elixirs on there this time, and they're expensive enough that I don't really want to chuck 'em just because.

Really wishing I'd gone for locking tuners at the same time!

EDIT: It's not overselling it to say that this guitar plays so well now, it's made me fall in love with playing guitar all over again. I spent two hours yesterday and two hours today just playing for the hell of it, which I haven't done in years. It also sounds perfect now too - I swapped the P90 in the bridge (which was too bassy, and not defined enough) for a DiMarzio Tone Zone T, which complements the guitar and the Little '59 in the neck brilliantly. Soooooo happy, which is also a rare thing for me!

EDIT 2: Just bought some Gotoh locking tuners that match the rest of the hardware, because I'm not compromising on this guitar