My Telecaster is twenty years old and for its first ten years was my only guitar. Changed the strings earlier today and realised that a few frets have some quite visible divots in them. To be honest they look worse than they feel but I’m still slightly concerned. If I listen very carefully indeed (I don’t think I’m imagining it) I can hear that the strings sound slightly less lively at those frets - presumably because the string is being pressed slightly closer to the fret above and so can’t ring out quite so well if that makes sense. I don’t want to shell out for a fret dress if it’s not really necessary. Also, since this particular instrument has sentimental value I’d be devastated if the work wasn’t done well.
I play guitar because I enjoy it rather than because I’m any good at it
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The good news is that fret wear almost always looks worse than it actually is, and that a good dress and re-crown will often leave the frets feeling no lower than they do now, or even seeming higher - which is counterintuitive but is really true.
I prefer to do a minimum-metal-removal job, which I would call a 'tapered dress', although I'm not sure if this is a common term - what it means is taking off the least metal possible consistent with returning the fret tops to a straight line up the neck, if that makes sense. The result is the most height reduction at the nut end and none at the top frets, which sounds as if it should be wrong but actually produces a great-playing neck, in a similar way as a compound-radius fingerboard does, by giving lower frets and easy chord playing at the nut end, but plenty of fret height for bends further up the neck.
So ask how the tech does the job, basically - even more important is properly re-crowning and polishing, not leaving the fret tops flat or rough... which are always the sign of a bad job by someone who doesn't know what they're doing.
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"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
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"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein