fender road worn supposed to have flat frets?

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bluesallday

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I recently bought a fender road worn guitar 50's and the frets they say are 6105's but they look kind of flat.Are the supposed to be that way?
 
I'm not familiar enough with the road worn series to answer your question, but, a Strat made in the fifties would have had uncrowned frets.
 
Every new "relic'd" instrument I've encountered has had no fret wear as such, some of them have had cosmetically dulled frets but no actual wear. How flat are we talking? Got any pics? Maybe someone has done a drastic fret dress without re-crowning but no one will be able to say without a look see. 6105's aren't flat by design though.
 
Milnoque said:
I'm not familiar enough with the road worn series to answer your question, but, a Strat made in the fifties would have had uncrowned frets.
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Really? Do you mean from the factory or "by now it would be uncrowned"?
 
It is new from the store I bought it from so I am assuming it is factory fresh.Would the warranty cover taking it to an authorized repair shop and have it looked at or what is my recourse.
 
slowmotion said:
Really? Do you mean from the factory or "by now it would be uncrowned"?
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I did not say "by now it would be uncrowned".

When a Stratocaster was made in the fifties they basically filed the fret surfaces and polished them smooth. They skipped the part where you use a curved file to round the top of the frets after dressing. This left the fret surfaces squared off and flat on top. This practice was actually very common on maple fretboard instruments through the sixties. As I said, I have no experience with the new road worn Fenders. I was suggesting they could have done it this way.
 
I went and looked up the Fender road worn series. It lists jumbo frets. In this case I would expect to see a very wide fret with a comparatively low crown. Is that's what you're describing?
 
This is another one of those where a picture is going to be the only way to judge.

"Vintage" frets on fenders generally means narrow and quite tall. Not uncrowned.
 
muttley600 said:
This is another one of those where a picture is going to be the only way to judge.

"Vintage" frets on fenders generally means narrow and quite tall. Not uncrowned.
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As I said, I'm not familiar with the new reissue models. I was talking about how they used to come in to the shop back in the day.

Thanks
 
Yes they are fairly wide and semi flat to actually flat across the tops.They list them as 6105's and the pictures of 6105's I've seen are narrow and tall,not wide and flat or semi flat.
 
Milnoque said:
As I said, I'm not familiar with the new reissue models. I was talking about how they used to come in to the shop back in the day.

Thanks
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The original fender fret wire was tall and narrow with a crown just like any other fret.
 
This pic comes from a '53 Strat. I can't assert that the frets have never had work on this guitar but, where they are not worn, they are like the frets on a new Fender were. I had to reduce the size of the pic to attach but I believe it is large enough to see what I'm talking about. In the unworn areas the frets are flat on top.
 

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looks very similar to that,but if it is a new guitar should they look like that.Even though it is a "reliced" guitar I would think they would use new frets and not wear them down.
 
I don't believe your guitar is like that. I believe you have wider frets with a crown done as Muttley said "in the normal fashion". If your frets are very wide the crown will be a wider radius and your frets will look flatter than standard frets do.

If you want a definitive answer you'll have post pics.
 
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