Fret dress or re-fret?

[PeteS]

Hi all,
I have an 80's Fender Jazz Bass Special, I have owned from it new and the frets are looking quite worn now, I have tried to include a photo. The question is - do I need to fully re-fret the bass, or would a fret-dress work?
Either option, any advice before I go down this route, as this is my pride and joy, the intonation is still pretty good and it plays ok, apart from it being very prone to fret clank which is probably my heavy handed technique - or will new frets help to reduce the clank?
Regards
Pete

[Manton Customs]

Very little wear there, so a minor fret dress is all that's necessary. If it's playing ok you might not even need that, but if a good luthier does the work it will bring the action down.

[HowieBass]

What he said ^^^^

I think if you have at least 1mm of height left in the frets you can have them re-crowned and you'll be fine.

[PeteS]

Thanks for the advice, re-crown it is then. Just out of interest - do you think worn frets produces more fret clank with finger style?

[chris_b]

Are the strings buzzing? Is there actually a problem?

Unless there's more to this than the picture is showing, I don't see a problem with these frets at all.

Fret clank? New frets won't stop clanking if it's caused by your technique. Don't hit the strings so hard or take the bridge up a little.

[Bassassin]

Simple fret dress & setup will have it looking & playing like new - if that's the worst bit, that's really very little wear for 30-odd years' use.

Some hamfisted oafs (such as me!) can achieve worse than that in a month!

[Manton Customs]

[quote name='PeteS' timestamp='1478964348' post='3173016']
Thanks for the advice, re-crown it is then. Just out of interest - do you think worn frets produces more fret clank with finger style?
[/quote]

Not directly no, it's either a symptom of a setup which doesn't suit you, strings that don't or technique.

Just so you're clear the process is a level, crown and polish...in that order. Just recrowning them is not good practice as it'll not bring the frets to level...but your luthier/tech will know that .