Fret dressing/crowning

[velvetkevorkian]

Hi all, I have three fretted basses in varying degrees of requiring a fret dress- one is pretty much unplayable with any kind of decent action. Is it feasible to do this yourself with minimal tooling, or is it best left to a professional? My local guitar shops are quoting £70-£100 to have this kind of work done. If its possible, what would I need? Any references to assist? I'm relatively comfortable with adjusting the bridge and truss rod but that's not enough for this one.
Cheers
Kyle

[Mr. Foxen]

I've done it with a flat thing (a plane with no blade is good) and fine wet and dry paper. Set the unstrung neck totally flat, envelope it in masking tape and use the flat and the paper to skim them down, then carefully round off the resulting edges by hand or suing a shaped ret file you can get.

[kingforaday]

try [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Guitar-Parts-FRET-LEVELING-DRESSING-KIT-Luthier-Tools_W0QQitemZ110345236660QQcmdZViewItemQQptZGuitar_Accessories?hash=item110345236660&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1683|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1308"]this[/url] i've used it and it worked out pretty well for me, gets pretty good reviews from others online too

[xilddx]

It's easier than you think. Get the Thomas Ginex kit. EDIT: Just noticed the King's link is for the same.

[url="http://cgi.ebay.com/Guitar-Parts,-FRET-POLISHING-KIT,-Luthier-_W0QQitemZ120371664731QQcmdZViewItemQQimsxZ20090201?IMSfp=TL090201117001r21090"]http://cgi.ebay.com/Guitar-Parts,-FRET-POL...201117001r21090[/url]

I use it on all my guitars and basses (apart from my fretless, doesn't seem to work for some reason) with no problems and the results are excellent. Cheap bit of kit too.

Alternatively, get some radius blocks, fret dressing files, etc. I refretted one of my basses with the StewMac kit, wasn't too difficult and I did a pretty good job first try. The kitchen was a bit of mess, mind.

Edited February 2, 2009 by silddx

[Al Heeley]

[quote name='kingforaday' post='397159' date='Feb 1 2009, 07:52 PM']try [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Guitar-Parts-FRET-LEVELING-DRESSING-KIT-Luthier-Tools_W0QQitemZ110345236660QQcmdZViewItemQQptZGuitar_Accessories?hash=item110345236660&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1683|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1308"]this[/url] i've used it and it worked out pretty well for me, gets pretty good reviews from others online too[/quote]
this got a real slating on a luthiers forum too. If you want to clean/polish the frets then ok but to do any sensible levelling work to help improve the action, then i think its too short to do a decent job. I use a perfectly flat piece of hardwood, 8" long, 3" wide and an inch thick, and wrap some wet'n'dry emery around it. Once you check the fretboard all over with a good long level edge, mark up the high spots with a felt pen. then get to work with the sanding block. Once this is done, then i have a crowning file I bought off the internet to put the dome back on the frets. I learnt this from a weekend set up class I went to a few years ago, run by patrick Eggle, and boy does he make some superb acoustics.

Eggle has a neat trick for fret polishing which I use all the time. He wraps a clean rag or 1/2 an old t-shirt really tightly round a cork sanding block and rubs on some of that abrasive polishing stick used for buffing wheels, then a minute or two hard rubbing up and down the fretboard gives a beautiful gleaming result with many of the fine scratches and shallow dings rubbed smooth. Feels like a new instrument.

Edited February 2, 2009 by Al Heeley

[xilddx]

For me, the USP of the Ginex is that you can use it with the strings on and tuned to pitch, it can help reduce the classic bolt on S profile problem which even my Warwick has.

Of course luthiers will slag it off, just like a lot of musicians and the MU slagged off sequencers when they first arrived.