Levelling Frets

Josh_Cosku

Hi all!
I am not able to make my mind up about levelling my favorite guitar neck by myself and looking for some help.

Some info about me. I made all guitar setups by myself, it is not a issue for me to remove and putting a biolt on neck back . I assemblied a partscaster during lockdown, it ended good. I also do some sloppy soldering in my guitars. I am also a mechanical enginnering by education but not a handy one.

My favorite guitar neck requires some levelling now. I saw a fret levelling kit from Crimson guitars around £110 and willing to buy it and give it a try with some help from youtube. 

My questions:
- Any chances that I do something bad to the neck?
- Shall I do it bu myself and require a new skill which I can use it in the future? 
- Shall I just take it to a luthier for pro work? 

Thanks!

Winny_Pooh

How many do you plan to do over the coming years?

Funkfingers

Josh_Cosku said:

My favourite guitar neck requires some levelling now. 

How valuable is your favourite guitar? 

If you had no option but to purchase a replacement neck, how much would it cost?

•

Learning by trial and error is best practised on an instrument of little or no monetary value.

Become competent and confident at fret work before working on your favourites.

Josh_Cosku

@Winny_Pooh I own generally 3-4 guitars at the same time and maybe 10-15 times in the future. This might be an optimistic guess. 

@Funkfingers . That is a good point actully, I didn't think about this aspect before. Thanks for sharing. It is a custom built neck, will be very hard to replace. 

Winny_Pooh

I tooled up and stated DIYing. If careful and you take minimal amounts down you are fine to DIY.
Just practice on a cheap used neck first.

Aside from usual advice, I absolutely recommend getting a fret rocker and lowering the very high frets individually first as it means that the overall levelling goes more smoothly.

Crimson's stuff is good (I have their levelling beam, fret rocker & polishing rubber) although I would recommend a diamond coated rounding file set  like from stewmac if you have the money.

TTony

Josh_Cosku said:

- Any chances that I do something bad to the neck?
- Shall I do it bu myself and require a new skill which I can use it in the future? 
- Shall I just take it to a luthier for pro work? 

1. Yes.  But not so much risk if you go slowly and carefully, and ask any questions before you  make an assumption - and a mistake.
2. Yes  - acquiring new skills is always a good thing, particularly if you're going to be making more in the future.
3. See 2.

Funkfingers' comment is  what's generally advised.  Practice on something cheap first.

zedhex

I would suggest you buy a couple of really cheap car-boot-sale guitars to practice on first. There are quite a few ways that you can screw up frets. Just to mention a couple: getting them flat is one thing, getting them the right shape and with nicely smoothed off fret-ends is another. it's also remarkably easy to put scrapes and gouges in the fretboard, and you will usually need to re-cut the nut to get your intonation correct on the lower frets.

The first neck I levelled came out sort of okay, the second one I did was a bit of a mess, but the third one was really good. I haven't looked back since. 

Josh_Cosku

@Winny_Pooh @TTony @zedhex ;
Thanks guys!! Really good recommendations and ideas.